Eckard,
Yes, Michelson was correct. From Wallace's The Farce Of Physics:
The translation of Einstein's 1905 special relativity paper [57 p.37] presented the argument that one could explain many electromagnetic actions by fundamental assumptions based on two postulates and that the "introduction of a "luminiferous ether" will prove to be superfluous", and his paper made no direct reference to the Michelson-Morley experiment or the work of Poincaré and Lorentz. On page 313 of Pais' book we learn that in 1920, after Einstein had become famous, he made an inaugural address on aether and relativity theory for his special chair in Leiden. In the address he states:
"The aether of the general theory of relativity is a medium without mechanical and kinematic properties, but which codetermines mechanical and electromagnetic events."
So we finally find that relativity is an ether theory after all, and that this ether has arbitrary abstract contradictory physical characteristics! This illustrates the arbitrary nature of relativity, Most physicists, and for that matter, most physics text books, present the argument that relativity is not an ether theory. On page 467 we find that Einstein wrote to his dear friend M. Besso, near the end of his life in 1954:
"I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept,i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics."
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Here's the excerpt which shows that the psychology of the world wars did play a part in the acceptance of Einstein's relativity:
With regard to the politics that led to Einstein's fame Dr. S. Chandrasekhar's article states: In 1917, after more than two years of war, England enacted conscription for all able-bodied men. Eddington, who was 34, was eligible for draft. But as a devout Quaker, he was a conscientious objector; and it was generally known and expected that he would claim deferment from military service on that ground. Now the climate of opinion in England during the war was very adverse with respect to conscientious objectors: it was, in fact, a social disgrace to be even associated with one. And the stalwarts of Cambridge of those days - Larmor (of the Larmor precession), Newall, and others - felt that Cambridge University would be disgraced by having one of its distinguished members a declared conscientious objector. They therefore tried through the Home Office to have Eddington deferred on the grounds that he was a most distinguished scientist and that it was not in the long-range interests of Britain to have him serve in the army... In any event, at Dyson's intervention - as the Astronomer Royal, he had close connections with the Admiralty - Eddington was deferred with the express stipulation that if the war should have ended by 1919, he should lead one of two expeditions that were being planned for the express purpose of verifying Einstein's prediction with regard to the gravitational deflection of light... The Times of London for November 7, 1919, carried two headlines: "The Glorious Dead, Armistice Observance. All Trains in the Country to Stop," and "Revolution in Science. Newtonian Ideas Overthrown." Dr. F. Schmeidler of the Munich University Observatory has published a paper [49] titled "The Einstein Shift - An Unsettled Problem," and a plot of shifts for 92 stars for the 1922 eclipse shows shifts going in all directions, many of them going the wrong way by as large a deflection as those shifted in the predicted direction! Further examination of the 1919 and 1922 data originally interpreted as confirming relativity, tended to favor a larger shift, the results depended very strongly on the manner for reducing the measurements and the effect of omitting individual stars. So now we find that the legend of Albert Einstein as the world's greatest scientist was based on the Mathematical Magic of Trimming and Cooking of the eclipse data to present the illusion that Einstein's general relativity theory was correct in order to prevent Cambridge University from being disgraced because one of its distinguished members was close to being declared a "conscientious objector"!
Alan
