"[L]et us look at what primarily motivated Michelson (and Morley) into performing these experiments. One of the clear motivations was a letter written by Maxwell titled, "On a Possible Mode of Detecting a Motion of the Solar System through the Luminiferous Ether", that was published in Nature, shortly after he died. Michelson and Lorentz refer to this letter in their respective papers about the Michelson Morley experiment, in 1887 and 1892, respectively. ...Michelson read this... letter and thought he could prove Maxwell and his mathematics wrong... and failed to detect anything meaningful in the form of an interference shift."