Edward W. Morley

Edward Williams Morley was born January 29, 1838, and built a reputation on precision: his exacting measurement of oxygen's atomic weight set a standard for chemical accuracy. The work that made his name came later, when he partnered with Albert Michelson on an experiment designed to detect the "luminiferous ether," the invisible substance scientists believed light waves moved through. They found nothing - no ether, no variation in light's speed. That null result, published in 1887, became one of the most famous failed experiments in history, clearing the ground for Einstein's relativity two decades later. Morley died February 24, 1923, his careful hands having dismantled a pillar of 19th-century physics without meaning to.