10. A. Sfarti, The Trouton Rankine experiment and the end of the FitzGerald contraction

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Volume 22: Pages 158-159, 2009

The Trouton Rankine experiment and the end of the FitzGerald contraction

A. Sfarti 1

1Computer Science Department, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

Trouton was appointed assistant to FitzGerald in 1884 and he was influenced by FitzGerald’s “length contraction theory” as an explanation to the null result for the Michelson-Morley experiment. After the null result of the Trouton-Noble experiment [Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. A 202, 165 (1904)], Trouton teamed up with Rankine and devised a new experiment to measure the change of resistance of a wire when moving from the parallel direction to the transverse with respect to the ether [Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 80, 420 (1908)]. Trouton used a Wheatstone bridge. In the following paper we give a detailed description of the lesser-known Trouton-Rankine experiment.

Keywords: Trouton-Rankine Experiment, Lorentz-FitzGerald Contraction

Received: May 7, 2007; Accepted: March 3, 2009; Published Online: March 30, 2009