{
  "annotation_id": "b8e42d72-1e8b-47b3-84dd-a25e2c13ff6a",
  "date_created": "2026-03-02T18:00:53.743000Z",
  "date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:00:53.743000Z",
  "file_hash": "0d35c1080cd1441ecd752be0828ea9124bd6a01ce23aa71d86d60a4636d05114",
  "private": false,
  "record": {
    "abstract": "95 years before Special Relativity was born, Arago attempted to detect the\nabsolute motion of the Earth by measuring the deflection of starlight passing\nthrough a prism fixed to the Earth. The null result of this experiment gave\nrise to the Fresnel\u0027s hypothesis of an ether partly dragged by a moving\nsubstance. In the context of Einstein\u0027s Relativity, the sole frame which is\nprivileged in Arago\u0027s experiment is the proper frame of the prism, and the null\nresult only says that Snell\u0027s law is valid in that frame. We revisit the\nhistory of this premature first evidence against the ether theory and calculate\nthe Fresnel\u0027s dragging coefficient by applying the Huygens\u0027 construction in the\nframe of the prism. We expose the dissimilar treatment received by the ray and\nthe wave front as an unavoidable consequence of the classical notions of space\nand time.",
    "arxiv_id": "physics/0412055",
    "authors": [
      "Rafael Ferraro",
      "Daniel M. Sforza"
    ],
    "categories": [
      "physics.hist-ph"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1088/0143-0807/26/1/020",
    "journal_ref": "Eur. J. Phys. 26 (2005) 195-204.",
    "title": "Arago (1810): the first experimental result against the ether",
    "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0412055"
  },
  "schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
  "source": {
    "execution_id": "46f91952-efff-4da1-aafb-6bf72202ad20",
    "id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
    "type": "Model",
    "variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
    "version": "0.1.0"
  },
  "user_id": 1000002
}