this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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[–] maxwellfire 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

As far as I'm aware, what you cited only proves that there is no ether that acts on light in a way such that the round trip time in the direction of ether travel is different from the round trip time in the direction perpendicular to ether travel.

It's not merely that:

somehow the movement of this medium caused the speed of light in one direction to be faster than another due to the movement of this medium, measuring the speed in two directions perpendicular to each other would reveal that difference.

Instead, it's that the speed of light must be different in the two directions in a way such that their round trip times don't average out to the same average as in the other direction.

The theories of ether at the time predicted such a round trip difference because of the wind like interactions that you say.

I believe that this in no way proves anything about the one way speed of light. The Michaelson Morley inteferometer only measures difference in round trip time.

(Insert comment about the irony of your last statement). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light