Aether Anisotropy (Allais)

Aether anisotropy is Maurice Allais's own interpretation of the lunisolar periodicity he reported in variations of a pendulum's azimuth. He proposed that space exhibits anisotropic characteristics, which he ascribed to motion through an aether partially entrained by planetary bodies. The source presents this as Allais's personal hypothesis, not as accepted physics, and notes it has not gained significant traction among mainstream scientists.

The argument as summarised in the source

Allais's hypothesis implies a speed of light dependent on direction with respect to a terrestrial observer, because the Earth moves within the aether while the rotation of the Moon induces a "wind" of about 8 km/s. He therefore rejects Einstein's interpretation of the Michelson–Morley experiment and of Dayton Miller's later verification experiments.

The source lays out the reasoning in these steps:

1. Michelson–Morley did not give a zero speed difference, Allais argues, but at most 8 km/s, without detecting any regularity. That difference was conventionally interpreted as due to measurement uncertainties.
2. Miller's experiments corroborated these results over a long period, but Miller could not explain the source of the irregularities. At the time, temperature problems were invoked, as concluded by Robert S. Shankland.
3. Re-analysis of Miller's data using sidereal time rather than the civil time Miller used led Allais to report a periodicity: a daytime sidereal variation of the speed of light over a period of 23 hours 56 minutes with an amplitude of about 8 km/s.
4. Titius–Bode generalisation — applying the Titius–Bode law to the Earth–Moon system, generalised to the aether, Allais calculates a "wind" of 7.95 km/s, comparable to the values found by Michelson and Miller.
5. Conclusion — Allais deduces that the aether turns with the stars, as proposed by the aether drag hypothesis, and is not fixed as Hendrik Lorentz thought when inventing his transformation and ether theory. Since the constancy of the speed of light in vacuum is a postulate of special relativity, Allais considers that postulate unfounded.

The source adds that measuring a change in the speed of light would require revisiting the definition of the 1960 metre, since current metrology uses constancy of the speed of light as an axiom.

Relation to the Allais effect

The source distinguishes the two claims. Allais states that the eclipse effect (the Allais Effect) is related to a gravitational anomaly inexplicable in the framework of the currently admitted theory of gravitation, without giving any explanation of his own. The aether anisotropy hypothesis is offered instead as his explanation for the separate anomaly of the lunisolar periodicity in pendulum azimuth.

Publications

Allais detailed the hypothesis in L'Anisotropie de l'Espace (1997) and L'Effondrement de la Théorie de la Relativité (2004). He also wrote "The experiments of Dayton C. Miller (1925-1926) and the theory of relativity" (1998). Jean-Bernard Deloly of the Maurice Allais Foundation wrote on "the re-examination of Miller's interferometric observations and of Esclangon's observations."

Related pages

• Maurice Allais
• Allais Effect
• Paraconical Pendulum