The earliest prediction of the Sagnac effect, and of the possibility of detecting the Earth’s rotation with an interferometer of square kilometer area, is by Lodge (1893, 1897). We illustrate the extraordinary range of theoretical motivations for the experimental study of the Sagnac effect, starting with previously unpublished correspondence between Lodge and Larmor, and ending with present (and planned) ring interferometer experiments whose sensitivity to the Earth’s rotation is of the order of parts per million (billion, respectively).