It is interesting to note that if the experiment were carried out to higher accuracy for both fast and slow mesons, it constitutes the experimental equivalent of the clock paradox. It would be observed that the fast meson returning to its starting point has actually lived longer in the laboratory frame as compared to a slow one. This experiment therefore in principle depends on the fact that the laboratory frame is a preferred one in relation to the masses in surrounding space.
In French.
Translated title: Astronautics and relativity. The test of space-time.
The relationship between the distance x (in light years) travelled by a hypothetical vehicle, in a system in which the vehicle is at rest at zero time and the time t (in years) measured in the vehicle is derived for the case in which the vehicle is moving with a constant acceleration of 950 cm.sec.-2 (measured with respect to a system instantaneously at rest relative to the vehicle at any instant). In this case, x = cosh t-1, the corresponding time which elapses in the fixed system is t = sinht.
Demonstrates that the sizes of bodies, intervals of time and mass are not affected by motion as such.
The difficulty of reconciling experimental evidence with the general relativity theory which states that all accelerated motion is relative.
Michelson devised "an exceedingly clever, beautiful and accurate instrument - his well-known ether-drift interferometer - for the particular purpose of discovering whether there is any difference in the time demanded for a beam of light to make a round trip over the same distance, along and across the direction of the earth's motion." The experiment furnishes evidence for thinking that the relative motion of the earth and the ether is almost zero.
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