ALBERT MICHELSON

Albert Abraham Michelson was the first American scientist to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (the first American awarded it was President Theodore Roosevelt, noted for his contribution to ending the 1905 war between Russia and Japan). Award-winning of the Nobel Committee in 1907 "for its precision optical instruments and performed with the help of their spectroscopic and metrological investigations, Michelson is widely recognized as the father of modern theoretical physics. Although it is disputed by its direct role, many believe that his cooperation with chemist Edward Morley (in the famous experiments of Michelson - Morley) has laid the foundation upon which Albert Einstein built his personal theory of relativity.

In the center of efforts by Michelson for almost his entire life was a desire to measure with precision instruments physical properties of light.

Photo — «Albert Michelson»

He is credited with the proof that light travels at a constant speed regardless of the direction of movement in all conditions. Designed Michelson spectroscope proved the movement of molecules. He first measured the diameter of the star. His definition of the speed of light was the most accurate in his time.

Michelson was born in western Poland. In 1856 his family emigrated to America and settled in San Francisco. In recent days, gold rush in California and Nevada, his father sold to gold miners. Alberta recorded a male high school in San Francisco. The school said the ability of Alberta to the sciences and encourage his efforts. After an initial denial of admission (despite a request to U. S. President Grant) Michelson persuaded in their abilities to head the Naval Academy in Annapolis and was admitted to her in 1869

Two years after graduation, he returned to Annapolis a teacher of physics and chemistry.

Photo — «Albert Michelson»

Using simple instruments, he measured the speed of light, and its measurement was closest to the magnitude of which has become common in the 186 508 miles per second.

After studying in Europe in the 80′s. nineteenth century, he became a professor at the College of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1885 was born who became famous Union Michelson and Morley, who as a senior researcher has a large laboratory with modern equipment.

In 1887 the experiments of Michelson - Morley experiment ended in nothing. So-called zero result profoundly affected the outlook of physicists. In the 80′s. nineteenth-century physicists assumed that light creates unequal changes in the amorphous material filling the entire space. This substance called ether. In the widely accepted theory of ether was considered immobile. The light moves through the air at different speeds depending on the direction from which it emanates.

Photo — «Albert Michelson»

In their experiments, Michelson and Morley were allowed two beams of light reflecting from each other at an angle of ninety degrees. Their instruments showed that both the beam moving with equal speed. The experiment showed unacceptable and old-fashioned theory of the ether.

The consequences of their experiments have stunned many scientists. Is it possible that the earth is fixed and that Copernicus was wrong? Physicists have proved that the earth does not carry with it the ether in its movement through space. Most of his contemporaries Michelson (to some extent and Michelson himself) could not believe that the ether does not exist. Many scholars have responded to the experiments of Michelson - Morley attempts to calculate their consequences. In the end, the private Einstein′s relativity theory resolve the issue, first raised by the Michelson experiment.

Photo — «Albert Michelson»

Despite the enormous influence of his work for the next generation of physicists, Michelson never felt comfortable with their mathematically derived science. True purpose of physics, he considered the development of new instruments for measuring physical properties with maximum accuracy.

In 1892, Michelson became a professor of physics at the University of Chicago, where he worked until 1929 in 1920 at a dinner in Pasadena (California) in honor of Einstein and Michelson most distinguished German colleague, he admitted that Michelson opened insidious lack of air theory of light in the form in which it existed then, and thus stimulated the emergence of ideas of Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and Fitzgerald, which has evolved from a private theory of relativity.