Albert Abraham Michelson was a pioneering physicist born in Strelno, Prussia on December 19, 1852, who became the first American to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences. After serving as an instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy from 1875 to 1879 where he conducted his first precision measurements of light speed, he embarked on an academic career that would revolutionize experimental physics. He held professorships at Case School of Applied Science, Clark University, and ultimately became the first head of the physics department at the University of Chicago in 1892, a position he held until his retirement in 1929. Michelson's naval background and early fascination with light measurement established the foundation for his groundbreaking experimental work that would challenge fundamental assumptions about the nature of light and space.
Michelson's most significant contribution was the development of the Michelson interferometer, an instrument of unprecedented precision that enabled measurements up to a hundred times more accurate than the best microscopes of the time. In collaboration with Edward W. Morley in 1887, he conducted the famous Michelson-Morley experiment which demonstrated that light travels at a constant speed in all directions, yielding a null result that contradicted the prevailing ether theory and became a cornerstone for Einstein's theory of special relativity. Throughout his career, he conducted increasingly precise measurements of the speed of light, with his first measurement in 1879 achieving 186,325 miles per second, and his final measurement in the 1920s determining it as 299,798 kilometers per second. His work also included defining the international meter in terms of wavelengths of cadmium light, a precision measurement that directly contributed to his Nobel Prize recognition and transformed metrological standards.
Michelson's legacy extends beyond his famous experiment to foundational contributions across multiple scientific disciplines including metrology, spectroscopy, and astronomy. He served as president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1923 to 1927 and in 1920 made the first accurate measurement of a star's diameter, determining the size of Betelgeuse using a refined version of his interferometer. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907 for his precision optical instruments and the spectroscopic investigations they enabled, he established measurement standards that transformed scientific practice across physics and engineering. His relentless pursuit of accuracy in optical science laid the groundwork for technologies including Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and his commitment to meticulous experimental design continues to influence physicists seeking to measure the seemingly immeasurable.
