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this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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didn't they use to use shitloads of mercury for floating the lenses on a lighthouse, letting it turn without too much in the way of friction?
Anyone who’s studied high school physics will also remember one of the biggest blunders of modern experimental physics: the Michelson-Morley Experiment which infamously attempted to prove the existence of the aether but rather gave them a pretty clear confirmation of a lack of the aether. It actually ended up helping form one of the basic tenets of Einstein’s Special Relativity, which is that the speed of light is constant within an inertial frame of reference.
They floated their interferometer setup on a sandstone slab measuring 1.5m x 1.5m x 0.3m in a giant circular trough of mercury in order to provide near-zero friction and reduce vibrations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment
Not only is this technique still used to insulate large optical devices such as telescopes but liquid mercury is even spun around to create mirrors for telescopes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid-mirror_telescope
That's right, I often forget about that.