The Birth of the Constant-Speed-of-Light Nonsense

"Emission theory, also called emitter theory or ballistic theory of light, was a competing theory for the special theory of relativity, explaining the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887. [...] The name most often associated with emission theory is Isaac Newton. In his corpuscular theory Newton visualized light "corpuscles" being thrown off from hot bodies at a nominal speed of c with respect to the emitting object, and obeying the usual laws of Newtonian mechanics, and we then expect light to be moving towards us with a speed that is offset by the speed of the distant emitter (c ± v)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory

So in 1887 the Michelson-Morley experiment was compatible with c'=c±v, Newton's variable speed of light. Accordingly, in the absence of fudge factors ("without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations"), the experiment was incompatible with c'=c, the constant speed of light posited by the ether theory and later adopted by Einstein as his 1905 second postulate:

Banesh Hoffmann: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether." Relativity and Its Roots, p.92 https://www.amazon.com/Relativity-It.../dp/0486406768

Theoreticians could honestly have admitted that the Michelson-Morley experiment had proved Newton's variable speed of light and left it at that. They found it much more profitable to unscrupulously distort reality until the experiment "proved" what they wanted it to prove:

Henri Poincaré: "Lorentz could have accounted for the facts by supposing that the velocity of light is greater in the direction of the earth's motion than in the perpendicular direction. He preferred to admit that the velocity is the same in the two directions, but that bodies are smaller in the former than in the latter." http://www.marxists.org/reference/su...r/poincare.htm

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