The ether was created to explain how light travels from the sun to the earth, as light waves propogate from the sun through this medium.
The experiment proved there was no ether, however, Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity from its failure, which explained what the experiment attempted to do.
Due to the Theory of Relativity and the failure of the Michelson-Morley experiment, space was now recognized as a vacuum.
If the ether was viscous, planets would lose energy and spiral inward towards the sun. Therefore, physicists believed the ether was a perfectly mobile fluid with no viscosity. It is virtually incompressible, transparent, and fills all of space allowing planets to obey Newton's laws with ease.
Michelson developed the interferometer that splits a light in two beams. As light travels through a partially transparent and opaque mirror, light is sent in two beams in perpendicular directions. The light is then sent back by two opaque mirrors and the light combines into one beam. If the beams of light ravel at the same speed, the interferometer produces a read-out of a spiral with a single dot in the center.
The speed of the earth through space v = 3 x 10^4 m/s
Difference in completion time (v/c)^2 = 10^-8
Lorentz developed the Lorentz transformations (mathematical equations) to discuss the phenomenon of the retraction of a mirror in the interferometer.
Henri Poincare developed the priciple of relativity, that absolute motion will never be observed in a laboratory.
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