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To the latter category belong the experiments of Fizeau and Foucault as well as the Michelson-Morley experiment with its implications for Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
Experiments made by Fizeau with running water seemed to prove the one view, those of Michelson and Morley, involving the movement of the earth, the other view. In the celebrated Michelson-Morley experiment the velocity of light was shown to be the same, in whatever direction, relative to the earth's own motion, it was measured.
Wheatstone's device of the revolving mirror was afterwards employed by Foucault and Fizeau to measure the velocity of light. In 1835, at the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Wheatstone showed that when metals were volatilised in the electric spark, their light, examined through a prism, revealed certain rays which were characteristic of them.
'These experiments were made more than thirty years ago by the French philosophers, MM. Foucault and Fizeau.
The velocity of light is 186,000 miles a second; whence the distance to the sun is 92,780,000 miles. There seems, however, to be some uncertainty about the true value of the aberration, any determination of which is subject to irregularities due to the "seasonal errors." The velocity of light was experimentally found, in 1862, by Fizeau and Foucault, each using an independent method.
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