The New Student's Reference Work/Michelson, Albert Abraham

Mi′chelson, Albert Abraham, a brilliant physicist born at Strelno, Poland, Dec. 19, 1852; graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1873; resigned from the navy in 1881 to accept a professorship in physics at Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, O. When Clark University was founded, he resigned to accept a similar position at the new institution. Since 1893 he has been head-professor of physics at the University of Chicago. His earliest important work was an improvement in Foucault's method of measuring the speed of light. These researches were carried out at the Naval Academy in 1878-80. His memoirs on the interference of light-waves, on the relative motion of the earth and the ether, on the length of the standard meter in terms of the wave-length of coadmium light and on the new echelon spectroscope are so important as to have become classics.