Physicists regard this work as a crucial step in our journey toward an understanding of the very nature of space and time itself Had the results of this measurement been different, Einstein's theory of relativity would not have been tenable.
The Michelson-Morley experiment was remarkable in many ways. Not only did it set the stage for Lorentz, Fitzgerald, Poincare, and finally Einstein to establish the mathematical framework that described the propagation of light through space and time, it also marked a turning point for science in the New World. The year 1887 can be said to mark the birth of modern physics in America.
Perhaps the most astonishing feature of the Michelson-Morley experiment was the precision with which it was performed. The design of the apparatus was such that it would easily have been possible to detect a change of one part in one hundred million in the average speed ...
