The Michelson-Morley Fallacy: Re-evaluating the Null Result via Boundary Layer Entrainment in a Dynamic Kinetic Medium

Abstract

The 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment is foundational to modern astrophysics, widely cited as the definitive empirical disproof of the luminiferous aether and the primary historical justification for a fundamental spatial vacuum. However, a rigorous re-evaluation of the original 1887 manuscript reveals a critical methodological divergence between the authors' actual findings and the orthodox historical narrative. Michelson and Morley did not observe a true zero-velocity null result; rather, they measured a fractional relative velocity that they explicitly recognized as being compatible with George Stokes' hypothesis of an entrained fluid boundary layer. This paper demonstrates that the subsequent abandonment of all continuum mechanics by the physics community was not a mandate of the empirical data, but a methodological leap of mathematical convenience driven by the limitations of 19th-century inviscid fluid models. By applying modern continuous fluid dynamics to the interferometer apparatus, we demonstrate that the observed fractional phase velocity is a mandatory kinematic feature of a compressible medium. Consequently, the Michelson-Morley experiment only successfully falsified a static background, leaving the mechanics of a dynamic, continuous superfluid plenum entirely intact as a superior predictive model for modern cosmology.