An unexpected outcome of Michelson and Morley's experiment was the invention of the apparatus itself, the interferometer. This apparatus could delay a pulse of light simply by moving one of the side mirrors farther away, as demonstrated by visible shifts in the fringe pattern.
Click the Move Mirror button to view the fringe pattern shift.
Michelson perfected this aspect of the interferometer into a useful optical tool. His inventions and research earned him the Nobel Prize in 1907.
