Albert Abraham Michelson FFRS FRSE was a Prussian-born American physicist of Jewish descent, known for his work on measuring the speed of light and especially for the Michelson–Morley experiment. In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, becoming the first American to win the Nobel Prize in a science. He was the founder and the first head of the physics departments of Case School of Applied Science and the University of Chicago.
Michelson in 1907 (photograph of Nobel laureate)
Page one of Michelson's Experimental Determination of the Velocity of Light
Concluding page of Michelson's Experimental Determination of the Velocity of Light
Lt. Cmdr. Albert A. Michelson while serving in the U.S. Navy. He rejoined the U.S. Navy in World War I, when this portrait was taken.
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant that is exactly equal to 299,792,458 metres per second. According to the special theory of relativity, c is the upper limit for the speed at which conventional matter or energy can travel through space.
One of the last and most accurate time of flight measurements, Michelson, Pease and Pearson's 1930–1935 experiment used a rotating mirror and a one-mile (1.6 km) long vacuum chamber which the light beam traversed 10 times. It achieved accuracy of ±11 km/s.
Hendrik Lorentz (right) with Albert Einstein (1921)
