By Tina Stumpenhagen

General

• Albert Abraham Michelson was born in Strelno, Prussia, on December 19,1852 and passed away in May 9, 1931

• American Physicist• Known for his measurement of Speed

Light and especially for the Michelson-Morley experiment

• Received a Nobel Prize in Physics, 1907• First American to receive the Nobel Prize

in sciences

Grewing up

• Michelson was born into a Jewish family in Strezlno in Poland

• Family moved to the United States when he was two years old

• Grew up in Murphy's Camp, California and Virginia City, Nevada

• His father was a merchant

• he lived in San Francisco for his high school years with his aunt Henriette Levy

• His aunt was the mother of author Harriet Lane Levy

• Graduated as Ensign in 1873 and did a two- years cruise to West Indies

• appointed by President Grant to the U.S. Naval Academy

• became an instructor in physics and chemistry at the Academy under Admiral Sampson

• posted to the Nautical Almanac Office (Washington) to work with Simon Newcomb in 1879

• 1880 he obtained leave of absence to continue his studies in Europe

• Visited the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, and the College de France and École Polytechnique in Paris

• resigned from the Navy+returned to America to take an appointment as Professor of Physics in the Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, Ohio 1883

• 1887 he and Edward Morley carried out the famous Michelson-Morley experiment(demonstrate the existence of the "aether", the stuff in space that was said to transmit light and other forms of energy, ether was considered to be a medium like water in which light is propagated through)

• 1889 Michelson became a professor at Clark University at Worcester, Massachusetts

• 1892 he was appointed professor and the first head of the department of physics at the newly organized University of Chicago

• 1899, he married Edna Stanton and they raised one son and three daughters

• he has been awarded the Nobel prize for physics for 1907

• also won the Copley Medal in 1907• the Henry Draper Medal in 1916 and

the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1923

• A crater at the moon is named after him• Died in Pasadena, California at the age of

78• He is remembered  by dedicating

Michelson House in his honor

Speed of light• One of the most famous experiments is

the measurement and understanding of the Speed of Light

• Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity establishes that nothing can go faster than the Speed of Light

• C = 186,282.3960 miles per second, plus or minus 3.6 feet per secondC = 299,792.4562 kilometers per second, plus or minus 1.1 meters per second 

• lbert Michelson was known as finest experimental physicist alive