The Miller Rebuttal
In Volume 15 of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Einstein is confronted with the final chapter in the debate over the principle of relativity, which began with the Michelson-Morley experiment. Michelson's successor, Dayton Miller, reported that he had found evidence for an ether drift at altitude on Mount Wilson in California. What piqued the interest of many physicists was that Miller made an effort to tie in his experiment with the latest findings on the motion of the solar system in the galaxy, which he learned about from contact with astronomers at the observatory on Mount Wilson. Einstein corresponded with many fellow scientists who conducted experiments to check Miller's controversial findings. He was particularly close to Auguste Piccard of Brussels who replicated the experiment on a balloon. Piccard and many others found no evidence to support Miller's claims. Piccard's subsequent balloon experiments earned him undying fame, not least through his incarnation as the archetypal absent-minded Professor Calculus of the Tintin comics. By the conclusion of the volume, Einstein feels confident in declaring Miller to be firmly rebutted.