|
The Trouton–Noble experiment was an attempt to detect motion of the Earth through the luminiferous aether, and was conducted in 1901–1903 by Frederick Thomas Trouton (who also developed the Trouton's ratio) and H. R. Noble. It was based on a suggestion by George FitzGerald that a charged parallel-plate capacitor moving through the aether should orient itself perpendicular to the motion. Like the earlier Michelson–Morley experiment, Trouton and Noble obtained a null result: no motion relative to the aether could be detected.〔F. T. Trouton and H. R. Noble, "The mechanical forces acting on a charged electric condenser moving through space," ''Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. A'' 202, 165–181 (1903).〕 〔F. T. Trouton and H. R. Noble, "The Forces Acting on a Charged Condenser moving through Space. ''Proc. Royal Soc.'' 74 (479): 132-133 (1903).〕 This null result was reproduced, with increasing sensitivity, by Rudolf Tomaschek (1925, 1926), Chase (1926, 1927) and Hayden in 1994. Such experimental results are now seen, consistent with special relativity, to reflect the validity of the principle of relativity and the absence of any absolute rest frame (or aether). See also Tests of special relativity. The Trouton–Noble experiment is also related to thought experiments such as the "Trouton-Noble paradox", and the "Right-angle lever" or "Lewis-Tolman" paradox". Several solutions have been proposed to solve this kind of paradox, all of them in agreement with special relativity. ==Trouton–Noble Experiment== In the experiment, a suspended parallel-plate capacitor is held by a fine torsion fiber and is charged. If the aether theory were correct, the change in Maxwell's equations due to the Earth's motion through the aether would lead to a torque causing the plates to align perpendicular to the motion. This is given by: : where is the torque, the energy of the condenser, the angle between the normal of the plate and the velocity. On the other hand, the assertion of special relativity that Maxwell's equations are invariant for all frames of reference moving at constant velocities would predict no torque (a null result). Thus, unless the aether were somehow fixed relative to the Earth, the experiment is a test of which of these two descriptions is more accurate. Its null result thus confirms Lorentz invariance of special relativity. However, while the negative experimental outcome can easily be explained in the rest frame of the device, the explanation from the viewpoint of a non-co-moving frame (concerning the question, whether the same torque should arise as in the "aether frame" described above, or whether no torque arises at all) is much more difficult and is called "Trouton-Noble paradox", which can be solved in several ways (see Solutions below). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Trouton–Noble experiment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|