Michelson in 1887

MAY 01, 1987

The year of the famous ether drift experiment and the use of light waves as a standard of length was also a year for personal problems, including a damaging scandal.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881073

Albert E. Moyer

In July 1907, Bernhard Hasselberg, a member of the Nobel Prize committee, confided to George Ellery Hale that Albert Michelson was his choice for the year’s physics award: “In my opinion he is in every way, and absolutely without comparison, the most meritorious of all the gentlemen now proposed to us.”1 After the Swedish committee chose Michelson, making him the first American ever picked for a Nobel science prize, Hasselberg was even more complimentary. He wrote to Hale that Michelson’s selection “is the best of all which have been made up to this date. Our earlier laureates Röntgen, Lorentz, Zeeman, Becquerel, Curie, Rayleigh, Lenard and J. J. Thomson are indeed men of eminent scientific merits, but for my part I consider the work of Michelson as more fundamental and also by far more delicate.” Even if we allow for the idiosyncrasies of the Nobel selection process and for Hasselberg’s personal biases, we still must grant that by 1907 Michelson had earned the respect of the international physics community.

References

1. B. Hasselberg, letters to G. E. Hale, 5 July 1907 and 29 December 1907, Michelson Collection, Nimitz Library, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
2. W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) letter to J. W. Strutt (Lord Rayleigh), 23 January 1907, in S. P. Thompson, The Life of Lord Kelvin, vol. 2, Chelsea, New York (1976)p. 1194.
J. W. Strutt (Lord Rayleigh)in Scientific Papers by Lord Rayleigh, vol. 5, Dover, New York (1964)p. 678.
See also R. S. Shankland, Phys. Teach. 15, 19 (1977); https://doi.org/PHTEAH
G. Holton, Isis 60, 133 (1969); https://doi.org/ISISA4
A. Pais, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein, Oxford U.P., New York, (1982)
chs. 6,8.
3. The following fundamental studies also contain good bibliographies: L. S. Swenson, The Ethereal Aether, U. Texas P., Austin (1972);
D. M. Livingston, The Master of Light, Scribner’s, New York (1973);
R. S. Shankland, Am. J. Phys. 32, 16 (1964); https://doi.org/AJPIAS
J. M. Bennett, D. T. McAllister, G. M. Cabe, Appl. Opt. 12, 2253 (1973). https://doi.org/APOPAI
I am grateful to these authors for much of the background information in this article.
4. A. A. Michelson, letter to H. Rowland, 6 November 1885, in Science in Nineteenth Century America, N. Reingold, ed., Hill and Wang, New York (1964), p. 311.
5. F. W. Putnam, in Proceedings of the AAAS: Thirty‐seventh Meeting, Held at Cleveland. August, 1888, AAAS, Salem, Mass. (1889), p. 416.
6. A. A. Michelson, letter to J. W. Gibbs, 15 December 1884, in Science in Nineteenth Century America, N. Reingold, ed., Hill and Wang, New York (1964), p. 307.
7. G. Barker, letter to J. Stockwell, 5 May 1881, in R. S. Shankland, Am. J. Phys. 32, 22 (1964).https://doi.org/AJPIAS
8. A. A. Michelson, letter to W. Thomson, 27 March 1886, and letter to J. W. Strutt (Lord Rayleigh), 6 March 1887, in D. M. Livingston, The Master of Light, Scribner’s, New York (1973), pp. 117, 123.
9. C. Jungnickel, R. McCormmach, Intellectual Mastery of Nature, vol. 2, U. Chicago P., Chicago (1986), p. 120.
10. D. J. Kevles, The Physicists, Knopf, New York (1978), ch. 3. A. E. Moyer, American Physics in Transition, Tomash, Los Angeles (1983).
11. A. A. Michelson, letter to A. Mayer, 26 June 1880, in Science in Nineteenth Century America, N. Reingold, ed., Hill and Wang, New York (1964), p. 286.
12. The Leader and Herald (Cleveland), 17 October 1887, p. 8. Cleveland Plain Dealer, 26 October 1887, p. 8.
13. A. A. Michelson, quoted in A. E. Moyer, American Physics in Transition, Tomash, Los Angeles (1983), p. 63.
14. E. W. Morley, letter to S. B. Morley, 17 April 1887, in Science in Nineteenth Century America, N. Reingold, ed., Hill and Wang, New York (1964), p. 312.
15. A. A. Michelson, E. W. Morley, Am. J. Sci. 34, 427 (1887). https://doi.org/AJSCAP
See also A. A. Michelson, E. W. Morley, Am. J. Sci. 34, 333 (1887); https://doi.org/AJSCAP
A. A. Michelson, E. W. Morley, J. Assoc. Eng. Soc. 7, 110, 153 (1888).
16. A. A. Michelson, letter to J. W. Strutt (Lord Rayleigh), 17 August 1887, in R. S. Shankland, Am. J. Phys. 32, 32 (1964).https://doi.org/AJPIAS
17. S. Langley, in Proceedings of the AAAS: Thirty‐sixth Meeting, Held at New York, August. 1887, AAAS, Salem, Mass. (1888), p. 342; see also p. 345.
18. Science 10, 86 (1887).https://doi.org/SCIEAS
19. Report of the NAS for the Year 1887, US Government Printing Office (1888), pp. 10, 28.
20. Report of the NAS for the Year 1889, US Government Printing Office (1891), p. 41.
See also A. A. Michelson, letter to J. Billings, 15 May 1889, Michelson Collection, Nimitz Library, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
21. D. M. Livingston, The Master of Light, Scribner’s, New York (1973), esp. pp. 111–136.
22. The Leader and Herald (Cleveland), 11 October 1887, p. 5;
12 October 1887, p. 5; 13 October 1887, p. 8;
16 October 1887, p. 6.
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 11 October 1887, p. 8;
12 October 1887, p. 8;
14 October 1887, p. 5;
16 October 1887, p. 15.
See also the record from the Justice’s Court for Cleveland Township, 12 October 1887, and the Court of CommonPleas “Journal,” 17 November 1887, Cuyahoga County Archives, Cleveland, Ohio; “Police Court case records,” 22 November 1887, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio.
23. Decree of Divorce of Margaret H. Michelson from Albert A. Michelson, Michelson Collection, Nimitz Library, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
24. E. W. Morley, letter to S. B. Morley, 2 June 1889, in Science in Nineteenth Century America, N. Reingold, ed., Hill and Wang, New York (1964), p. 313.

More about the Authors

Albert E. Moyer. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia.