...actually that connection is deeper than it may first appear, as the MME was designed to detect the “ether”, what they believed at the time to be an absolute (stationary) reference frame, a sort of space “fabric”. Of course they failed to detect it, but instead discovered (18 years! before Einstein’s first relativity theory), that light maintains the same speed regardless of the circumstances. Einstein claimed he hadn’t heard of the MME results prior to formulating his theory, despite the fact that his mentor, Hendrick Lorentz, knew full well about it, and had come up with his Lorentz Contraction and dilation formulas in an effort to explain the puzzling MME results.
Weeellll, there is another way to explain the results.
The Earth doesn’t rotate, everything rotates around the Earth.
I actually have a very detailed thesis from someone which explains in detail how the experiment can be used to prove the geocentric theorem.
Einstein claimed he hadn’t heard of the MME results prior to formulating his theory, despite the fact that his mentor, Hendrick Lorentz, knew full well about it, and had come up with his Lorentz Contraction and dilation formulas in an effort to explain the puzzling MME results.
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IIRC, Einstein did say he knew of the Fizeau experiments and stellar aberration, which was all he needed to come up with his idea that there was no ether.
What really set Einstein apart was that he believed particles were real, a forbidden belief in German physics at the time. In fact all three of his great 1905 papers were centered on the idea of particles being real, and extensions of his graduate work. It helped that Einstein had little to lose. He was young and not even a professional physicist.
Most of the work for Special Relativity had already been done. That’s why it’s called a Lorentz Contraction rather than an Einstein Contraction.
Like so many successful people, Einstein was in the right place at the right time with the right idea.