Who was Albert A. Michelson? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Also Known As: Albert Abraham Michelson

Died At Age: 78

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Edna Stanton (m. 1899–1931), Margaret Heminway (m. 1877–1897)

children: Albert Heminway Michelson, Beatrice Michelson, Dorothy Michelson, Elsa Michelson, Madeleine Michelson, Truman Michelson

Physicists American Men

Died on: May 9, 1931

place of death: Pasadena, California, United States

Grouping of People: Nobel Laureates in Physics

Notable Alumni: University Of Berlin

More Facts

education: United States Naval Academy, University of Berlin

awards: 1907 - Nobel Prize in Physics
1907 - Copley Medal
1919 - Henry Draper Medal

1912 - Elliott Cresson Medal
1903 - Matteucci Medal
1923 - Franklin Medal
1923 - Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
1888 - Rumford Prize

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Childhood & Early Life

Albert A. Michelson was born on December 19, 1852 in Strzelno in the province of Posen, Prussia, currently located in Poland.

When he was only two, his Jewish parents immigrated to the United States in 1855.

He grew up in the mining towns of California and his family finally settled in Virginia City in Nevada.

His father was a successful merchant and sent his son to the public schools where Albert received his initial education.

He finished high school while staying with his aunt Henriette Levy Michelson in San Francisco.

He joined the ‘United States Naval Academy’ in Annapolis, Maryland in 1869 at the age of 17.

At the academy he excelled in optics and graduated as a midshipman in 1873.

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Career

After being on a naval cruise for two years, Albert A. Michelson returned to the academy and joined as an instructor in physics and chemistry in 1875.

In 1877 while in Annapolis, he conducted his first experiment on the speed of light.

In 1879 he determined that light travelled in air and in vacuum at 299,864 ± 51 km per second and 299,940 km per second respectively.

In 1879 he was transferred to the ‘Nautical Almanac Office’ in Washington which was a part of the ‘United States Naval Observatory’ where he worked with Simon Newcomb.

The academy granted him leave of absence and he went to Europe in 1880 to continue further studies on optics at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin. He also studied at the ‘College de France’ and the ‘Ecole Polytecnique’ located in Paris. He stayed in Europe for two years. He resigned from the navy in 1881.

In 1883 he became professor in physics at the ‘Case School of Applied Science’ situated in Cleveland, Ohio where he developed a better ‘interferometer’.

In 1887 he and Morley conducted the famous ‘Michelson-Morley experiment’ to determine the speed of light which remained as standard for the next forty or more years until Michelson himself obtained a better result.

In 1889 he joined the ‘Clark University’ in Worcester, Massachusetts as a professor.

He was appointed the first head of the physics department of the newly started ‘University of Chicago’ in 1892.

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From 1920, Michelson devoted himself to using a baseline measurement method with the distance between the ‘Mount Wilson Observatory’ and ‘Lookout Mountain’ serving as the baseline.

The measurement was started in 1922 and completed in 1924 by the ‘U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey’. Experiments done by him in the next two years came up with the result of 299,796 ± 4 km per sec. But this result was controversial because of the change in baseline which occurred due to a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in June 29, 1925 and other factors.

After 1927, many experiments were carried out using electricity to measure the speed of light which produced lower values than what Michelson had arrived at in 1926.

In 1930, he collaborated with Fred Pearson and Francis G. Pease in conducting a new experiment in Pasadena, California. He used a 1.6 Km long tube from which air was completely evacuated.

Awards & Achievements

Albert A. Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907 for his experiments on the speed of light with his self-made optical instruments.

He also received many other awards such as the ‘Copley Medal’ in 1907, the ‘Henry Draper Medal’ in 1916 and the ‘Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society’ in 1923.

Personal Life & Legacy

Albert A. Michelson died on May 9, 1931 in Pasadena, California.

Many universities and the US Naval academy have named halls and museums after him.

A crater on the Moon is named after him.

Albert A. Michelson Biography