Albert Abraham Michelson was born on December 19, 1852, in Strzelno, Poland, to Samuel and Rozalia Michelson. Samuel was a Jewish merchant and, at this time, purges of Jews were frequent so the family decided to leave town. Samuel prospered by selling supplies to gold miners near Sacramento, California. When the gold ran out, they moved on to Virginia City, Nevada, a silver mining town. Eventually they found their way to San Francisco, where Albert Michelson went to high school. In 1869, he applied to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and, when accepted, went east on the recently opened continental railroad. Michelson finished first in his class in optics but twenty-fifth in seamanship, in 1873. For four years, from 1875 to 1879, he was a science instructor at the Naval academy. On April 10, 1877, he married Margaret McLean Heminway in New Rochelle, New York. They had three children, Albert, Truman, and Elsa, before they divorced. Michelson was also married to Edna Stanton, with whom he also had three children, Beatice, Madeline and Dorothy. Michelson also taught at Case School of Applied Science, Clark University and was appointed the first department head of physics at the newly organized University of Chicago. He died on May 9, 1931.
In 1878, Michelson began work on what became his life passion, accurately measuring the speed of light. the first time he did this, he used ten dollars worth of apparatus along the seawall. He then travelled to Europe in 1880 to study optics and it was here that he began to build the interferometer. This device would split a beam of light in two and bring the parts back together, by evaluating the changes in the waves, accurate measurements could be made. When he returned to the United States, he measured the speed of light to be 299,835 km/s, with this value, which was the accepted value for forty years, Michelson became famous while still in his twenties. He was also the next to better the value shortly before his death.
In 1893, Michelson lead the fundamental research for determining the length of the standard meter. He did it in terms of the red light emitted by heated cadmium. He also measured the diameter of the star Betelgeuse to be 386,160,000 km (300 times bigger than the Sun) using a six-meter interferometer attached to a 254-centimeter telescope. This was the first accurate measurement of the size of a star.
Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley conducted an experiment to find the speed at which the earth is moving, in relation to the 'ether' that was assumed to be in space. This ether was said to be a fluid that conducted light waves and it was assumed that the ether would act kind of like a river current, slightly faster one way than the other. Using the accepted value of the speed of light and Michelson's interferometer they measured the speed of light while it travelled both in the same and opposite direction to that of the earth. They expected to have different values, by way of the concept of relative velocity, but they didn't. As the results, announced in 1887, showed, the ether didn't exist. This is said to be one of the most significant failures in science. Physics would have to be reformed and refined, a new foundation would have to be developed. This resulted in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, eighteen years later, showing light as a universal constant.
Michelson was the first American to ever receive a Nobel Prize in the sciences. In 1907, he won the Nobel Laureate in Physics "for his optical instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." Michelson's many contributions to the physics of light included his invention of optical precision instruments. He, himself, used many of these "in experiments that marked the beginning of modern physics." Michelson published 79 scientific papers throughout his career, among them are "Velocity of Light" (1902) and "Light Waves and Their Uses" (1903). He was also president of several scientific societies such as the National Academy of Sciences from 1923-1927.
Albert Michelson made great contributions to the advances of physics. His experiments started with the properties of light, disproved the theory of the ether and laid a foundation for Einstein's theory of relativity. Albert Einstein publicly paid tribute to Michelson's contributions to science in 1931, after Michelson's death:
"My honored Dr. Michelson, it was you who led the physicists into new paths, and through your marvelous experimental work paved the way for the development of the theory of relativity."
In 1878, Michelson began work on what became his life passion, accurately measuring the speed of light. the first time he did this, he used ten dollars worth of apparatus along the seawall. He then travelled to Europe in 1880 to study optics and it was here that he began to build the interferometer. This device would split a beam of light in two and bring the parts back together, by evaluating the changes in the waves, accurate measurements could be made. When he returned to the United States, he measured the speed of light to be 299,835 km/s, with this value, which was the accepted value for forty years, Michelson became famous while still in his twenties. He was also the next to better the value shortly before his death.
In 1893, Michelson lead the fundamental research for determining the length of the standard meter. He did it in terms of the red light emitted by heated cadmium. He also measured the diameter of the star Betelgeuse to be 386,160,000 km (300 times bigger than the Sun) using a six-meter interferometer attached to a 254-centimeter telescope. This was the first accurate measurement of the size of a star.
Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley conducted an experiment to find the speed at which the earth is moving, in relation to the 'ether' that was assumed to be in space. This ether was said to be a fluid that conducted light waves and it was assumed that the ether would act kind of like a river current, slightly faster one way than the other. Using the accepted value of the speed of light and Michelson's interferometer they measured the speed of light while it travelled both in the same and opposite direction to that of the earth. They expected to have different values, by way of the concept of relative velocity, but they didn't. As the results, announced in 1887, showed, the ether didn't exist. This is said to be one of the most significant failures in science. Physics would have to be reformed and refined, a new foundation would have to be developed. This resulted in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, eighteen years later, showing light as a universal constant.
Michelson was the first American to ever receive a Nobel Prize in the sciences. In 1907, he won the Nobel Laureate in Physics "for his optical instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." Michelson's many contributions to the physics of light included his invention of optical precision instruments. He, himself, used many of these "in experiments that marked the beginning of modern physics." Michelson published 79 scientific papers throughout his career, among them are "Velocity of Light" (1902) and "Light Waves and Their Uses" (1903). He was also president of several scientific societies such as the National Academy of Sciences from 1923-1927.
Albert Michelson made great contributions to the advances of physics. His experiments started with the properties of light, disproved the theory of the ether and laid a foundation for Einstein's theory of relativity. Albert Einstein publicly paid tribute to Michelson's contributions to science in 1931, after Michelson's death:
"My honored Dr. Michelson, it was you who led the physicists into new paths, and through your marvelous experimental work paved the way for the development of the theory of relativity."
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