Albert A. Michelson
American physicist (1852-1931) · United States · Scientists · Died at 78
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Something wrong?He clocked light itself - and in doing so, shattered the Victorian idea that space was filled with a cosmic jelly called the ether. The null result became more famous than a positive one ever could have been.
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, Before entering into these details, however, it may be well to reply to the very natural question: What would be the use of such extreme refinement in the science of measurement?
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Albert Abraham Michelson was born December 19, 1852, and built a career around a single obsession: measuring the speed of light with unprecedented precision. The Michelson-Morley experiment, designed to detect the ether wind as Earth moved through space, found nothing - a negative result that cleared the way for Einstein's relativity. In 1907 he became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in a science, honored for his optical instruments and metrological investigations. He founded and led the physics departments at both the Case School of Applied Science and the University of Chicago, institutionalizing experimental rigor in American labs. He died May 9, 1931, having spent nearly sixty years proving that empty space is truly empty.
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