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Determination of the motion of our earth relative to external frames of reference is a non-trivial task. Some theoreticians of the past, like Poincaré, declared it was impossible to measure the absolute motion of the Earth by experiments carried out here. Nonetheless, during the past century, observational astronomers, physicists and engineers managed to estimate the terrestrial motion relative to several external frames. The present paper lists such results, starting with Courvoisier and Esclangon data from the 1920s, and ending with the author’s own work during the past decade. The right ascension/longitude of reported motions, including the COBE data, was plotted in galactic, equatorial and ecliptic systems of coordinates. The points are scattered in galactic coordinates, thus indicating that solar motion relative to extra-galactic frames does not consistently affect our experiments/observations on earth. On the contrary, data plotted on equatorial coordinates seem to separate into two groups: (1) Data obtained by optical and mechanical methods, and by astronomical observation involving reflection of light, which cluster around a unique plane, and (2) Data obtained by the COBE and Smoot’s earlier data, thus suggesting two different mechanisms at work. The plot in ecliptic coordinates makes it evident that the data obtained by Esclangon, Courvoisier and Múnera is closely related to the strong radio source and/or blackhole at the center of our galaxy. The procedure used by the author to extract the value of  solar velocity from his two year Michelson-Morley experiment with stationary interferometer is briefly outlined. From that velocity the known solar motion relative to our galaxy is substracted: tangential motion around the center of the Milky Way, and nutation relative to the galactic plane. The residual velocity is reported, followed by a brief concluding discussion.

For Newton the equivalence between gravitational and inertial mass was an empirically decidable question that he answered with the experimental resources at his disposal. The experiment carried out by Eötvös, Pekár and Fekete (EPF) is conventionally interpreted as supporting the principle of equivalence in the sense that gravitational attraction is independent of the composition of the bodies involved in the gravitational interaction. Despite the conventional interpretation of EPF’s results, about 25 years ago in the context of a search for the so-called fifth force, Fischbach and his group (FG) revisited the EPF experiment and claimed that there was evidence for a variation of the Newtonian gravity constant G with the chemical composition of the two interacting bodies. After reviewing empirical results obtained during the last part of the 20^th century, in 1999 the FG gave up the search for their fifth force. Regarding this decision by FG, Nieto, Hughes and Goldman wrote in 1989 that “even though the original analysis of Fischbach et al. had been corrected and their proposed coupling to hyper charge is ruled out ..., the correlation with baryon number is present in the Eötvös data” (emphasis in the original). The purpose of the present paper is to briefly report on a Le Sagian gravitational model of our authorship that is fully consistent with EPF’s results, and with many other anomalous observations, some of them mentioned here. Since the sagionic fluid may be identified with dark matter, and the sagion energy identified with dark energy, there is no significant difference with current ideas. What is different is that the Newtonian G is not a constant, and depends on the region of the universe, and on the experimental arrangement and chemical composition of masses used for its determination. Additionally, there is a new background force.

The paper reviews empirical evidence from several optical experiments on earth showing that it is possible to detect earth??s motion. Four different experiments with different technical means, and from widely separated places in time and space, point towards solar motion in a plane with right ascension 75??, but there is no agreement on the declination, which seems to be large. This evidence contradicts the widely accepted heuristic principle that the motion of earth cannot be detected by terrestrial experiments, and opens the door for a reinstatement of the currently forbidden concept of absolute space ??. A closed finite Newtonian universe has interesting cosmological implications, as compatibility with the variation of speed with distance (without expansion), and the appearance of new acceleration term of the same order of magnitude as the MOND cut-off, thus offering an alternative explanation to the dark matter and MOND hypotheses.

The fringe-shifts produced in a stationary Michelson-Morley (MM) interferometer were recorded every minute in each session lasting from 24 hours to a week; more than 40 sessions were carried out during the period from the end of 2003 to the beginning of 2005. Diurnal variations of the fringe-shifts were observed in all cases; after subtraction of environmental pressure, temperature and humidity contributions the residual curves still depict similar cyclic behavior. Both the uncorrected and the residual fringe-shift curves were correlated against the projection of earth's velocity on the plane of the interferometer. The earth velocity at each instant was calculated using the value of solar velocity obtained from the COBE observations. The declination of solar motion that maximizes the correlation with our data is obtained. For comparison, a similar exercise is carried out for Miller's velocity.

We know Hector Munera from his interpretation of the Michelson-Morley experiment which, according to Munera, did show an aether drift. In this book, he presented a new approach to the electromagnetic force.

The present author has postulated a 4-dimensional (4D) aether formed by a fluid of preons in continual motion in a 4D-space (w,x,y,z), where the time dimension w is treated exactly the same as the spatial dimensions. By specializing the equation of motion to an inviscid constant density region of 4D moving with speed c along the w-axis, we obtain Maxwell equations and the associated continuity equation. The process of derivation pinpoints physical constraints underlying MEs, and brings out the novel concept of force along the wdimension. Two new terms appear in the equation for electromagnetic force, that might help explain recent experimental observations of excess energy.

Electromagnetic waves (EMW) are formed by electric and magnetic fields, both together solution of Maxwell?s equations. The magnetic field is solenoidal always, while the electric field is solenoidal in charge-neutral regions only.  Hence, conventionally, free-space electromagnetic fields are transverse to the direction of propagation; also, there exists a electric scalar potential but not a magnetic companion. Contrarywise, for the same homogeneous case, we exhibit explicit examples to show that: (a) Longitudinal magnetic fields are compatible with linearly polarized non-planar EMW, and (b) Magnetic scalar potentials are compatible with EMW. The direction of propagation of non-planar EMW oscillates around the direction of propagation of the plane EMW. 

Assuming the existence of a preferred frame S (i.e., absolute space), we start from a Newtonian model based on the equivalence of gravitational work and inertial energy. Microscopic processes for the absorption and emission of photons lead to frequency shifts in absolute space. The resulting expressions contain both gravitational and velocity components, but?in contrast to the conventional model?the gravitational term dominates. Redshifts are associated with very dense objects at almost any speed relative to S, and with normal stars at low speeds in S; on the other hand, blueshifts correspond to low density objects moving at high speeds in S. These results contrast with the conventional model where red/blueshifts are associated with recession/approximation from/to us. The present model predicts that photons may escape from extremely high-density objects, thus eliminating the concept of black holes. There is no connection assumed between redshift and distance, so that highredshift objects may be associated with objects having smaller redshifts. Also, our theoretical equation for frequency shifts is completely consistent with the phenomenological equation describing the observed periodicity in the redshift of quasars, suggesting that such objects may be formed by an integer number of neutron stars, moving at speeds around 0.5c relative to S. 

Despite the null interpretation of their experiment by Michelson and Morley, it is quantitatively shown that the outcomes of the original experiment, and all subsequent repetitions, never were null. Additionally, due to an incorrect inter-session averaging, the non-null results are even larger than reported. Contrary to the received view, Illingworth?s and other repetitions of the experiment were consistent with Miller?s positive results. On the theoretical side, a new systematic error is uncovered: the angle between the projection of earth?s velocity on the plane of the interferometer and the reference arm of the apparatus has been practically ignored. This phase angle produces a noticeable change in the position of the peaks from one turn to the next of the interferometer. Hence, the data analysis cannot be based on the average of fringe shifts during a session, but rather on the calculation of individual speed for each turn. This procedure was applied to the only two sessions reported in detail in the literature: Miller?s September 23, 1925 at 03:02 in Mount Wilson and Illingworth?s July 9, 1927 at 11:00 in Pasadena. Surpisingly, it was found that in both cases the measured speeds exactly correspond to the projection of earth?s orbital velocity only. As a result, the evidence against a preferred frame completely dissappears. 

It is argued that the small ether drifts first observed by Michelson and Morley may be compatible with either an extension of Newtonian Mechanics, or with Vigier?s interpretation of relativity in absolute space, provided that a small photon rest mass (of the order of 10-35 gr. for yellow light) be introduced.