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<title>MeasureIT - Issue 7.09 - The Essence of Albert Abraham Michelson - An Inexact Measurement</title>
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		<h1>The Essence of Albert Abraham Michelson - An Inexact Measurement</h1>
		<h3 id="subtitle"></h3>
		<p style="display:inline">
		September, 2009<br>
		by Margaret Greenberg
		</p>
		
		<p align="center"><strong></strong></p>
<p>At the time CMG was formed, measurement was on the minds of all mainframe operations staff as it should have been. There just weren't many ways to tune the mainframe without either buying more iron (sound familiar?) or making a few adjustments here and there. Without tools to tell operations staff what might need attention, they were as handicapped as we were just a few years ago with the distributed environment. Measurement has always been an engineering key to unlock the mysteries of malfunction.</p>
<p>Don Deese and Dave Schumacher wanted to provide an award annually to someone who promoted achievement in computer performance measurement. Who better to be CMG's namesake than Dr. Michelson? He measured various things and got a Nobel Prize for his efforts. According to Dr. Milliken, who wrote a small bio for the University of Chicago shortly after his death in 1931,</p>
<blockquote style="font-size: 11px; font-family: verdana; line-height: 16px;">"Michelson, pure experimentalist, designer of instruments, refiner of techniques, lives because in the field of optics he drove the refinement of measurement to its limits and by so doing showed a skeptical world what far-reaching consequences can follow from that sort of a process, and what new vistas of knowledge can be opened up by it. It was a lesson the world had to learn. The results of learning it are reflected today in the extraordinary recent discoveries in the field of electronics, of radioactivity, of vitamins, of hormones, of nuclear structure, etc. All these fields owe a large debt to Michelson, <strong>the pioneer in the art of measurement of extraordinarily minute quantities and effects</strong><strong>."</strong></blockquote>
<p>What follows is an overview of his life experiences and personality--- not a definitive biography. Our intention is to provide the essence of Dr. Michelson. In researching this article, I found several dates and other information that are a little confusing or contradictory and vary among sources. In those cases, I used the one which seemed to be most correct. His youngest daughter, Dorothy Michelson Livingston, wrote a biography, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Master of Light (1972)</span>. Michelson and his siblings were long gone by the time she began her 10 years of research for the book. She interviewed fellow scientists with whom he worked either as an employee, boss or colleague. Then, she talked to the remaining family members, whose memory might have been a little faulty at that late date.&nbsp;</p>
<p>As early as 1903, Michelson had been nominated. Generally, the recipient will be honored for accomplishments in the last year; however, past efforts can also be acknowledged. His award was in recognition of his work over past decades:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ensuring the exactness of measurements</li>
<li>Investigation in the field of spectroscopy </li>
<li>Obtaining a non-material standard of length (a measurement)</li>
</ul>
<p>Note: No specific mention of his famous null experiment or speed of light. Interesting, isn't it? According to the Michelson collection at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis: he is renowned for his experiments and precise determinations of the velocity of light, ether drift, length of the standard meter, spectral lines, diameters of stars, and rigidity of the earth.</p>
<p>&nbsp;But this is getting ahead of our story of Michelson's adventures. He, even more so than Dr. Merrill, lived a serendipitous life.</p>
<p>Dr. Neil Gunther (also a physicist and our 2008 Michelson recipient) of West Prussian descent referred to a commonality of origin with Dr. Michelson, who was born (1852) in the East Prussian town of Strelno, not far from the Russian border. Both have relatives who settled in gold rush areas. His father, Samuel Michelson, a Jewish merchant (probably selling goods from a pushcart) moved to Inowroclaw, where he met and married a gentile, Rosalie Przylubska, the daughter of a Polish businessman. Such intermarriages were quite common. He didn't have his own business until after he married, when he opened a shop in Strelno about a half day's horseback ride from Inowroclaw. Likely his father-in-law provided financial help and guidance. But all was not well in the Prussias. They were living near the frontier of East Prussia, i.e., the Russian border. By 1795, Poland had been entirely divided among Prussia, Austria and Russia. There was intermingling of religions and intermarriage was common. However, there were struggles among social groups, but the nobility called the shots, capriciously or not.&nbsp; In 1848, the same year gold was discovered in California, there were uprising in Prussia -referred to as the 1848 Revolution.&nbsp; As a result, some laws restricting commerce and crafts were liberalized. Soon the nobles realized all this was getting out of hand and they were losing power. Eventually, some of these liberties began to be restricted.&nbsp; For the masses, there was the consternation caused by religious infighting between the Catholics and Protestants. Jews tended to side with nobility as protectors. Protestantism had begun to think of Jews and Catholics as being aligned. Additionally, the new provinces made by restructuring of acquired Poland had conflicts generated by majority Catholics in Protestant-ruled areas and the reverse. Not to mention the possibility of a pogrom from the Russian sector. Borders were shifting. By the mid-1850s, getting to a more stable environment became very desirable, especially for the Jewish population. And America beckoned.</p>
<p>Albert was born in 1852 and was followed by two sisters, Pauline and Johanna. Johanna died in infancy-there was no mention of her in family records. So only the parents, Albert and Paulina made their way across Europe to Hamburg where they caught a ship to New York in 1854 (55?) and made the three week crossing in steerage.&nbsp; They stayed with Rosalie's family. Sam's sister and her husband (Belle and Oscar Meyer) just returned from the Gold fields in California to regale them with all the money to be made there. Sam Michelson determined that he'd set up business in Murphy's Camp.</p>
<p>Sam had three options to reach California: overland, a long and dangerous operation; by steamer around Cape Horn; and Panama. Sam chose Panama. First they made their way by steamer to Puerto Bello, then overland via canoe and railroad to Panama City. Here they waited 3 weeks to catch the next available ship to San Francisco for another 60 day ride. They suffered through Puerto Bello which was a tropical disease-ridden spot that easily could have them. There were water shortages, high prices, robbers, etc. for which travelers had to maintain a wary eye. Albert was less than four at the time, but Sam and Rosalie relived the horror of their passage so often that it had become an indelible memory.</p>
<p>Clipper ships, those fast cargo carriers of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, were in the harbor and quite a sight, but shipping companies often lost their crews to the lure of the gold fields. Shipping by clipper was very quick. All the way from New York to San Francisco via the Horn could be as little as 80 days; however, this was more expensive than steamer and shipments were often packed tightly. One shipper, Jonas Clark, who eventually became founder of Clark University, packed so that every available inch of space contained salable material and not just packing materials. Stoves would be packed with grains and the container in which they were packed was filled with more grain or other items usable by miners. But they weren't done yet. The last lap was a 150 mile stage coach trip to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphys,_California">Murphy's Camp</a>, where Sam decided to set up a business to supply the miners with picks, shovels, panning&nbsp; gear, clothing, .</p>
<p>Those who have read Bret Harte's story, <strong>The Luck of Roaring Camp</strong>, will have a good idea of events in Murphy's Camp as that is where Bret composed it. Life was never dull. There were constant streams of new people, arguments and knife fights, the occasional hanging, gunshots after dark. Many of the miners were accomplished individuals, who had come to make a quick buck and go back east. Here young Albert learned to sketch in the Sequoia forests and observed the interplay of light in the high trees. He learned to play the violin. He came to understand the art of invention-making do until the next shipment arrived. He saw railroads being built and all kinds of engineering achievements.</p>
<p>In 1859, a terrible fire almost completely destroyed the city. It was soon rebuilt despite the lack of insurance by all owners. Despite all the excitement, he managed to attend the local grammar school.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the Civil War intervened in 1860. Many miners were patriotic and, despite making great money in the fields, rushed to enlist in the Army on the Union side. This altercation between two areas of the country often split families. And there was fear of profiteering as various individuals and companies vied for government contracts. The story goes that General Ulysses Grant was constantly bothered by his father, who traded cotton. The North needed cotton for tents and the South needed the money for munitions, which made for strange bedfellows. Lincoln complained that the army was so busy in this commerce that they were less involved in the war itself than in profiteering.&nbsp; In December 1862, Grant became so annoyed with his father and his father's group of Cincinnati merchants (only a few of whom were Jewish) that he decided to issue an <a href="http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=81910">order</a>, the infamous <a href="http://bonniekaryn.wordpress.com/2007/12/11/december-17-1862-grant-issues-general-order-no-11-against-the-jews/">General Order 11</a>.&nbsp; Instead of tossing his father out of the camp, he took his anger out on the Jews.&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote style="font-size: 11px; font-family: verdana; line-height: 16px;">GO 11: <em>The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department [the "Department of the Tennessee," an administrative district of the Union Army of occupation composed of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order. Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.</em></blockquote>
<p>Before anything could be done to stop to this, the communities of Holly Springs, Tennessee, Oxford, Mississippi, and Paducah, Kentucky were evacuated of all Jews. This caused a big outrage because there were many Jewish residents who had absolutely nothing to do with trading or cotton speculation. This group of Americans found their voice. A delegation representing Jews was dispatched to Washington to tell Lincoln what was happening and Lincoln immediately issued an order rescinding General Order 11. Lincoln's quick action gained the respect of the Jewish leaders. After all, one of the reasons that they came to America was to escape Old World prejudices. Researching a little further, Grant and other Union officers had expressed dislike for Jews. This presented unfortunate political problems for Grant when he ran for President in 1868: Democrats encouraged Jews to vote against him.</p>
<p>Albert got his middle name from Abraham Lincoln. Sam was that much of a patriot. Sam and Rosalie wanted their son to have more opportunities and sent him to San Francisco with the Meyers family where the 12 year old Albert began formal schooling at San Francisco's Boys High School. The principal, Theodore Bradley, influenced him a great deal and became quite an advocate for Albert's further schooling. He set up the labs at school and was introduced to formal science, training that probably had begun in the miner's camp. Additionally, Bradley taught him to box-defends himself. Albert was light, but fast and could "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee."&nbsp; Beyond that, he was developed into a rounded student and not directed to be a prodigy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.onlinenevada.org/nevada_statehood">&nbsp;Nevada</a> became a state in 1865 because of the Comstock Lode, a big silver strike that contributed heavily to the financing of the war.&nbsp; It jumped over several other states with more population, but Lincoln pushed statehood because Nevada was pro-Union and pro-Republican. He strongly wanted their votes in the election of 1864 and the increase in Congressional delegation that would be favorable to the Union.</p>
<p>Because&nbsp; ''s Camp was played out, Sam moved his family and business to Virginia City, Nevada in 1867-- in the middle of Albert' s high school. Comstock utilized technological innovation to get at ore deposits that were deep underground such as &nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cmg.org/square_set_timbering">square-set timbering</a>, which kept the walls from collapsing. These technologies, too, must have intrigued Albert on his visits home.</p>
<p>After his graduation from high school, he returned to Virginia City and was wondering what to do next. He wanted to pursue science and optics, in particular; however the money wasn't there. Sam spotted a letter in the local paper that the Nevada representative, Thomas Fitch, wanted to appoint someone to Annapolis. An exam would determine the lucky candidate. Albert was one of three finalists; however, Fitch selected another-- based on need. Again, here was a powerful constituency to which Fitch had to answer. He wrote a letter to Grant saying that he hoped Albert Michelson would be given another chance. Then Fitch sent him to DC with another letter that was without the political implications (in reference to GO #11). Albert set off by train and saw the vast lands in between Virginia City and DC via the newly constructed railroad. There were guards at every stop to protect from robbers and, in between, to thwart Indian attacks.</p>
<p>In DC, Grant received him and indicated that there was nothing he could do. He had already filled his ten appointments-at-large. On his way out, a sympathetic naval aide suggested that he make a trip to Annapolis on the off chance that one of Grant's appointments had failed the entrance exam. He waited three days in Annapolis to hear from the Commandant of Midshipmen that there was NO vacancy. With little money left, a dejected Albert took a train back to DC.&nbsp; Before the train to Virginia City pulled out of the station, he was paged and went to see the President a second time. Grant decided on an eleventh appointment-at-large. Supposedly, it was at the recommendation of one of his examiners and the Superintendent of the Academy. Years later, Michelson referred to his appointment as an "illegal act"; however, there were two more.</p>
<p>The Academy was founded in 1845 and consisted of wooden houses. Vice Admiral Porter upgraded the campus facilities. He treated the midshipmen decently compared to how ship captains often treated crews. The ship was a castle and the captains were often complete dictators with life and death authority over the crewmen. His youngest students were just a bit over 14. Another improvement was his emphasis on "high science" (mathematics). The Board of Visitors also was incensed about astronomy, mechanics and physics, moral science (law), history and composition<a href="#ednref1">[i]</a>.&nbsp; Porter stood his ground and prevailed. Albert was able to take advantage of these improvements even though Porter resigned in December 1869.<br />At the Academy, he was very serious about his studies, especially optics. His fellow students generally liked him and acknowledged he didn't have to study much to make good grades. He managed to entertain the other cadets with his violin with lessons from Murphy's.</p>
<p>He might have been expelled over an answer to a physics question for which he had not prepared. Nevertheless, he managed to arrive at the correct answer but not using the "approved" proof. He underwent a trial by a board of officers and solved a similar problem in a reasoned way, but not according to the text. Charges were dismissed.</p>
<p>Summers were spent sailing along the East coast. Optics was his favorite subject and he ranked first in the class. The Superintendent, Rear Admiral John Warden, was upset that Michelson was twenty-fifth of twenty-nine students in seamanship. His advice: 'If in the future, you'd give less attention to those scientific things and more to your naval gunnery, there might come a time when you would know enough to be of some service to your country." Luckily, he didn't.</p>
<p>He went to Virginia City after graduation to visit his family. In the fall, he got his first assignment to a ship-the Monongahela, a sailing ship. No steam ships were used in the two-year training, despite the use of them doing the Civil War.&nbsp; Unfortunately, an explosion of a steam-sail ship ended the training on steamships when all four men on board a checkout run were killed. Under sail, Albert traveled from New Hampshire to Brazil. One stop was at Puerto Bella, where his family underwent their ordeal on the way to San Francisco. He recalled all the stories his parents related to him.</p>
<img src="m_63_3_1.jpg" align="left" style="padding: 20px;"><p>Picture to the left: Albert in 1873 from Nimitz library at Annapolis.</p>
<p>Perhaps because he wanted to work with Lt. Commander William Sampson, he decided to stay in the Navy. After the training ended, he became a physics and chemistry instructor in December 1875.First, Lt. Commander Sampson became a mentor to Albert. As time passed, he invited him to events at his home. As Mrs. Sampson's brother was Albert Hemingway, a retired Wall Street millionaire who had a young daughter, Margaret. She had just returned from a finishing school in Paris when she met Albert at one of the family gatherings. The two fell in love and married in April 1877 at the Hemingway castle in New Rochelle, NY. Albert would have been happy to have a civil ceremony, but Mrs. Hemingway would have nothing but an Episcopal service: Albert in full dress uniform and Margaret in a princess white satin dress.</p>
<p>After their honeymoon, he returned to participate in the summer sailing. The new method of teaching by lecture demonstrations was initiated by Cmdr. Sampson who suggested that he begin with Foucault's experiment on the velocity of light. He rushed to the library to brush up to do this experiment. In the process of assembling the apparatus<a href="ednref2">[ii]</a>, it became apparent to Michelson that he could make a better measurement if he used high quality mirrors and lenses and a longer baseline. This would cost more money than the academy had budgeted for his project, and his father-in-law, a successful Wall Street businessman, provided an additional $2,000--a large sum at the time<a href="ednref3">[iii]</a>. With his improved setup, Michelson was able to measure the speed of light with much higher accuracy than had previously been achieved; indeed, no more accurate measurement was made for a generation, and then it was made by Michelson himself. This accomplishment hit the national press and made Michelson famous while he was still in his twenties. Nonetheless, the United States was still very much a scientific backwater, and Michelson took a leave from his academy position to spend two years studying optics at the major scientific centers of the time, the universities in Paris, Berlin, and Heidelberg. He resigned his navy commission in 1881.<br />In Europe, Michelson became familiar with contemporary thinking on the nature of light. It had been established since about 1800 that light was some kind of wave, but it was not clear what sort of wave it might be; most waves propagate through a medium, and there was no obvious medium to support light waves. For this reason, scientists postulated the existence of an invisible "luminiferous ether" to serve as a medium for light. This ether was believed to permeate all space, even out to the distant stars, since the light from them could only reach us through the ether. Yet the earth must be able to pass freely through this ether, or it would be slowed down in its orbit around the sun. In the 1860s the brilliant work of Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell had unified electricity and magnetism, previously thought to be distinct phenomena. His theory predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves, which were promptly discovered by German Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. The speed of these waves, also predicted by Maxwell's theory, turned out to be the speed of light, and it was therefore natural to assume that light was simply rapidly varying electromagnetic waves propagating through the ether. The calculated speed of light was presumably the speed relative to the ether, just as the speed of sound is relative to the air, the medium through which sound waves travel. The speed of light should therefore change as the earth moved through the ether in its orbit around the sun. Michelson resolved to prove the existence of the mysterious ether by detecting these changes in the speed of light.<br /><br />Michelson already had in mind the ideal instrument for his proposed experiments. While in Europe, he had begun work on what would occupy much of his scientific career: the <a href="http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/michel.html">interferometer</a><a href="ednref4">[iv]</a>, one type of which bears his name. In a Michelson interferometer, a single beam of light is split into two parts, which follow different paths to a detector. Since light is a wave, the two parts of the beam interfere with each other. If the two paths are the same length, and light travels at the same speed in each path, the beams will reach the detector at the same time and produce an interference pattern. However, if light travels at different speeds in each path, the beams will reach the detector at different times, changing the interference pattern. Michelson arranged his <a href="http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/michel.html">interferometer</a> so that the two paths were perpendicular to each other. Then the motion of the earth through the ether should affect the speed of light; one path would be "upwind" with respect to the ether and the other "crosswind," and the speed of light in each path would correspondingly differ. His initial experiments in Berlin failed to detect any such differences, but he continued them on his return to the United States.</p>
<img src="m_63_3_2.jpg" style="padding: 20px;">
<p>Michelson's patent</p>
<p>Fast forward to 1881. Albert A. Michelson was awarded a position at Case Western<a href="ednref5">[v]</a> for the princely sum of $2, 000 effective September 1, 1882. Additionally, he was granted $7,500 to purchase instruments in France for use at Case. And he was granted permission to finish his studies in Paris.</p>
<p>In 1885, he and another professor, Dr. Edward W.&nbsp; Morley<a href="ednref6">[vi]</a> worked together to run another experiment on the velocity of light. However, Michelson became so involved in his work that he omitted eating and sleeping. Finally, he had a breakdown and Margaret sent for a doctor. She was so fearful for his health that she contacted Dr. Hamilton (incidentally a grandson of Alexander Hamilton and a leading authority in treatment of the insane). She was ready to have him committed to a sanitarium but Morley stuck by him and refused to assist her.&nbsp; Fortunately, he recovered within months, but was so incensed at her that their marriage took a steep downhill plunge from there. When he returned to their home in Cleveland, he moved to a separate room. That was not the end of his troubles because he learned that the trustees at Case found a temporary substitute for himself. His salary was cut in half to compensate for the temporary replacement. The result of all these events was a personality change. He no longer had confidence in people and became cynical and wary of exposing his emotions. Then, he started to work in a new lab at Case. Once again, he readied the experiment.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In June 1886, he received a doctorate from Case. Other awards and recognitions began to flow in. By this time Sam had again moved the family-- away from the depleted mines in Virginia City to San Francisco. Albert decided to take his family to visit. The idea was to visit Murphy's, dig through the mines by now mostly abandoned, see the Sequoia. The boys learned all about their father's siblings. Aunts Pauline and Julie had become teachers. Miriam<a href="ednref7">[vii]</a> was a writer and reporter. Ben had been sent to work for a copper company in Arizona. He was only about twelve at the time and had the opportunity for travel and to see the results of Geronimo's irritation with miners and settlers. He became a clerk and eventually in charge of the butcher shop. He, like his older sister Miriam had a gift for writing and was hired at the San Francisco Evening Post.&nbsp; (Eventually, he became FDR's speech writer.) &nbsp;<strong>Hooverville</strong>&nbsp;was the popular name for shanty towns built by homeless men during the&nbsp;Great Depression, named after the&nbsp;President&nbsp;at the time,&nbsp;Herbert Hoover, because he allegedly let the nation slide into depression. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of the Democratic National Committee.</p>
<p>When they returned to Cleveland, there was a huge fire at Case in the building where Michelson had his lab. A few students tried to save some equipment, but most was lost. There was a huge library and scientific equipment-all gone. And the insurance was totally inadequate. Michelson began to reconstruct his equipment in Morley's labs.</p>
<p>By 1887, they were ready. By then, their equipment was capable<a href="ednref8">[viii]</a> of detecting changes in speed of only one or two miles per second (less than the speed of the earth in its orbit). Yet Michelson and Morley saw no changes at all. <br /><br />This famous "Michelson-Morley" experiment may be the most important null result in the history of science.<img src="m_63_3_3.jpg" align="left" style="padding: 20px;"> Subsequent improvements demonstrated that there was also no change in the speed of light due to the earth's rotation on its axis, nor could a later experiment on a high mountain detect any changes, making untenable the hypothesis that the earth was "dragging along" the ether near its surface. This is a complete paradox in classical Newtonian physics, in which it is incomprehensible that the speed of light plus another speed should add up to the speed of light. The only reasonable conclusion was that the concept of an ether pervading all space was wrong. The problem was not resolved until 1905, when Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity, which recast the definition of space and time and allowed science to dispose of the ether. There is a double irony here: Einstein's solution was so radical that Michelson himself was very reluctant to accept it, and it appears that the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment--originating from what were from a German perspective provincial American scientists--were not even known to Einstein at the time he did his work, although they are now viewed as primary evidence for the theory of special relativity.</p>
<p>Michelson began to look elsewhere for a lab. In 1889, he joined Clark University. The founder, Jonas Clark had made his fortune in California, first by supplying the miners and later by making furniture. He sold his holdings and moved back to Worcester, MA. He got no respect because he didn't graduate from an East Coast establishment school such as Harvard. He did the next best thing. He decided to start a college of his own and hired a president to put it together. President Granville Stanley Hall, the first American PhD in psychology,<img src="m_63_3_4.jpg" align="left" style="padding: 20px;"> had a graduate school in mind and wanted only top flight faculty who would teach only those subjects which were missing here: Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, and Psychology. He travelled Europe to find and recruit the best. Here he heard of Michelson.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Mr. Clark was one of the frugal <img src="m_63_3_5.jpg" align="left" style="padding: 20px;">shippers who knew how to get the most out of the expensive Clipper ship charters. Every available space was taken by something salable at the destination. Therefore, it was not a surprise that he'd want significant ROI on his $1 million investment. Hall had promised various things to his scholars just to get them to sign and Clark soon put the clamps on expenditures. Michelson and other faculty members became disenchanted and full scale rebellion broke out. At one point, Michelson told Clark that if he wanted top notch faculty he'd have to treat them like top notch people.</p>
<p>Michelson, once again was swept up in the formation of a new university. This time it was the University of Chicago, founded by John D. Rockefeller. Due to dissatisfaction at Clark and the incredible salaries offered, most of the faculty drifted westward to Chicago. Clark University almost closed, but Hall managed to salvage it.</p>
<p>Michelson joined them in 1892 to become the first head of the Physics Department. He remained here until 1928. After that, he moved to California to replay his light experiment. The findings were to be published shortly after he died. He closed his brilliant life with a paper named, Measurement of the Velocity of Light, but did not see the final result.</p>
<p>Back to the personal life of Michelson: In 1897, he moved out of the house. Margaret agreed to file for divorce and he would pay her $10,000 for child support of their three children. The two boys would get tuition at Harvard. <img src="m_63_3_6.jpg" align="right" style="padding: 20px;">Incidentally, the University of Chicago is often referred to as the Harvard of the west.&nbsp; Margaret took the children east with her. One version of the story is that he decided to never see them again-possibly because the children testified against him in the divorce proceedings. And he made no attempt to contact his two sons and daughter.</p>
<p>On December 23, 1899, he married Edna Stanton, approximately 19 years his junior. Their first child was born in August 1902. Madeline was followed in two years by Beatrice. And two years later Dorothy arrived. It is she who eventually wrote a biography of her father.</p>
<p>Above is one of the water colors he drew. Most were California landscapes. There was an exhibition of his artwork in Pasadena, just before his death.</p>
<p>In 1907, he was awarded a <a href="http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1907/">Nobel Prize</a> in physics and went to Stockholm to receive it. King Oscar died and the usual festivities were omitted. However, he gave his <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-lecture.pdf">acceptance speech</a> and<img src="m_63_3_7.jpg" align="left" style="padding: 20px;"> displayed the <a href="http://geo600.aei.mpg.de/">interferometer</a> grating, which many audience members came up to inspect. One of them was a young man, who said, "You don't recognize me, do you?" It was his oldest son, Albert H. Michelson. The younger Michelson was in Europe as a consular post in Turin, Italy. <img src="m_63_3_8.jpg" align="left" style="padding: 20px;">They made up and the father asked his son to keep in touch by mail and promised that he'd visit the next time he came to Europe. Sadly, a couple years later, the younger Michelson died in an automobile accident in Cologne, Germany. &nbsp;</p>
<p>After he returned home, Edna became instrumental in reuniting him with his other son, Truman. His interests were in anthropology and he worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology. His concentration was on American Indian tribes, particularly the Algonquin. Elsa, his daughter, never saw him or corresponded with him after the divorce. She lived with her mother and stepfather in the Bahamas and summered in a vacation home that they bought when the children were young. When, as a older lady, she was contacted by her half-sister, Dorothy, she declined an in-person meeting. Eventually she did consent to answer some questions for her father's biography.<img src="m_63_3_9.jpg" align="left" style="padding: 20px;"></p>
<p>Albert was quite a patriot and signed up for duty during WWI. Here he is in uniform...in his 60s.</p>
<p>In summary: The wave length provided an absolute and exactly reproducible standard of length. With E. W. Morley he conducted the Michelson-Morley experiment (1887), which failed to detect any difference in the speed of light caused by the motion of the earth through space. The results are also known as "the famous null experiment". That led to the refutation of the ether hypothesis and contributed to the development of Einstein's theory of relativity. Michelson was the first to measure the diameter of a distant star. He also demonstrated that the earth as a whole is rigid, not molten. Awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics, he was the first American scientist to receive the honor. His major writings include <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11753"><em>Velocity of Light</em></a> (1902) and <em>Studies in Optics</em> (1927).</p>
<p>He had difficulty letting go of ether. One might wonder what he'd think of <a href="http://www.cmg.org/rob/Projects/MeasureIT/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/String%20theory%20site%20http:/www.superstringtheory.com/">string theory</a>.</p>
<img src="m_63_3_10.jpg" style="padding: 20px;">
<p><strong>Michelson in popular culture</strong></p>
<p><img src="m_63_3_12.jpg" align="left" style="padding: 20px;">In an episode of the <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/television">television</a> series <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/bonanza-tv-western"><em>Bonanza</em></a> (<em>Look to the Stars</em>, broadcast <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/march-18">March 18</a>, <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/1962">1962</a>), Ben Cartwright (<a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/lorne-greene">Lorne Greene</a>) helps the 16-year-old Albert Abraham Michelson (portrayed by 25-year-old Douglas Lambert (1936-1986)) obtain an appointment to the <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/united-states-naval-academy">U.S. Naval Academy</a>, despite the opposition of the bigoted town schoolteacher, (played by <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/william-schallert">William Schallert</a>). <em>Bonanza</em> was set in and around <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/virginia-city-nevada">Virginia City, Nevada</a>, where Michelson lived with his parents prior to leaving for the Naval Academy. In a voice-over at the end of the episode, Greene mentions Michelson's 1907 Nobel Prize.</p>
<p>The home in which Michelson lived as a child in <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/murphys-california">Murphy's Camp, California</a> is now a tasting room for <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/twisted-oak-winery">Twisted Oak Winery</a>.</p>
<p>Michelson House in <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/shoreland-hotel">Shoreland Hall</a>, an undergraduate dorm at <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/university-of-chicago">The University of Chicago</a>, is named after him.</p>
<p>Michelson House, an undergraduate residence hall at <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/case-western-reserve-university">Case Western Reserve University</a> in <a href="http://www.cmg.org/topic/cleveland-ohio">Cleveland, Ohio</a>, is named after him.</p>
<p>Michelson Hall (housing the departments of Computer Science and Chemistry) at the US Naval Academy is named after him.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<hr size="1" />
<p><a name="ednref1">[i]</a> The Master of Light, Livingston, pp28 - 29</p>
<p><a name="ednref2">[ii]</a> The rest of this paragraph (and the following two paragraphs) is taken directly from Univ of Chicago Ryerson Library archivist.</p>
<p><a name="ednref3">[iii]</a> Approximately,&nbsp; $52,000 in 2008 dollars.</p>
<p><a name="ednref4">[iv]</a> Alexander Graham Bell provided funding . Michelson had taken a leave of absence from the Navy and didn't have money to finance equipment. He was in Europe with Margaret and their two sons, Albert H. and Truman.</p>
<p><a name="ednref5">[v]</a> Previously Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio.</p>
<p><a name="ednref6">[vi]</a> Dr. Morley could have become a minister instead of a scientist. Fortunately for Michelson, he chose science.</p>
<p><a name="ednref7">[vii]</a> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Bishop's Carriage</span>,&nbsp;published in 1904</p>
<p><a name="ednref8">[viii]</a> This paragraph from Univ of Chicago Ryerson Library archives.</p>
 
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