Experimental physicist — Albert Abraham Michelson (1852–1931) was an American physicist born in Prussia (in Strelno, now in Poland) who emigrated to the United States as a child. Trained at the Naval Academy, he specialised in precision measurement, particularly of the speed of light, for which he provided increasingly accurate values. Together with Edward Morley he carried out in 1887 the famous experiment that attempted to detect the Earth’s motion through the ether: the null result was one of the experimental foundations of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. He perfected the interferometer that bears his name, a fundamental instrument of modern physics. In 1907 he was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Trivia
The Michelson-Morley experiment is often cited as the most famous ‘failed’ experiment in the history of physics, precisely because its negative result paved the way for relativity.
Theories and contributions
- Michelson-Morley experiment — The null result in the search for the ‘ether wind’ showed that the speed of light is the same in every direction, a foundation of special relativity.
- Michelson interferometer — Instrument that exploits the interference of two light beams to measure distances and optical path differences with extreme precision.
Present in chapters
Linked atoms
3 linked atoms.