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n 1879, in Virginia City, Territory of Nevada, a local newspaper announced:
Ensign Albert Michelson son of the drygoods merchant Samuel Michelson has aroused the attention of the whole country by his remarkable discoveries in measuring the speed of light.
It was not exactly the kind of news that made headlines in the mining town where my father grew up, but his parents were elated when they read it.
Father was an instructor in physics at the U. S. Naval Academy when he made this experiment. He had come to the Academy in a rather unusual way. As a child of four, he and his parents emigrated from Poland, arriving in San Francisco in 1856, during the Gold Rush. They traveled by steamer to New York and Panama, and from there, they crossed the Isthmus by train, mule, and canoe to the Pacific. Father’s early childhood was spent in Murphy’s Camp, where the elder Michelson kept a store stocked with equipment for the miners. Rosalie, his mother, was determined to give her son a good education. When he had exhausted the slender opportunities of the educational facilities at Murphy’s, she made an arrangement with Theodore Bradley, principal of the Boy’s School in San Francisco to board him while he attended school there.
Mr. Bradley gave my father an excellent start in optics and aroused his interest in various aspects of science. He also taught him to box. It was Bradley who had the wisdom to urge him to try for an appointment at the Naval Academy. In those days, there was no other college in the country tn offered adequate instruction in physics.
Father failed to receive the appointment, although he tied for first place with two other boys, one the son of a Civil War vet eran, whom Congressman Thomas Fitch ha selected, for political reasons. But Fitch was evidently loath to abandon young Albert, m whose behalf he wrote the following letter.
To the President of the United States.
Sir,
I respectfully solicit your personal . • • attention to the communication I now have the honor to address you. Having been notified by the Secretary of the Navy of a vacancy in the Naval Academy from this State, I determined to submit the appointment to com"
petition and did so by public advertisement,
a copy of which I have annexed hereto. A number of boys competed for the prize and after an examination of unusual length and severity, the Committee reported three of the candidates as equal in scholastic attainments- I annex a copy of the one I have given far selecting the lad who has received the nomination for Midshipman.
The object of this communication is to solicit from you the appointment of Midshipman for one of the three who received the Committee’s endorsement—Master A. A- Michelson.
I am sure that young Michelson could pass even a severer examination than that made at the Naval Academy and that he would be an ornament to the Service and a credit to his nominator, and if you can give him a place you will never regret it.
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Father was 16 years old when he carried this letter across the country on one of the first transcontinental trains and presented it at the White House. President Ulysses S. Grant received him and listened with interest to his plea for a chance to attend the Naval Academy. The President had already made the ten appointments allotted to him; nevertheless, he advised father to go to Annapolis on the chance that one of the boys might fail to appear. This was not the case, however, and father returned to Washington, greatly discouraged, to board a train for San Francisco. In the meantime, President Grant had reconsidered his decision and sent a messenger to the train (so my father told me), who summoned him to the White House for a second interview. Brushing aside the rules of procedure that required the consent of Congress, Grant signed an appointment-at- large, the eleventh that year.
Midshipman Michelson at once took up residence with the other plebes in the cramped, uncomfortable quarters of the famous USS Constitution, then ignominiously moored like a houseboat in the Severn.
His curriculum ranged from English and foreign languages to field artillery and boat howitzers. Admiral David Dixon Porter, a former Superintendent of the Naval Academy had added dancing to the curriculum, insisting that his cadets have impeccable manners, perfect physical condition, and a thorough education, for they were to represent the United States as ambassadors in all the sea' ports of the world. Certain members of d'e Board of Visitors strongly disapproved of the program, and a rumor went about that the taxpayers were supporting “Porter’s Dancing Academy.”
The facility in science, which Bradley had detected in my father, developed rapid!) while he was at Annapolis. He exasperated his fellow students by managing to draw top grades in physics, though scarcely opening his text book. During his first year at the Academy, this talent brought him near the brink of disaster.
My father appeared one morning for a physics examination. Unlike the rest of the class, he had not crammed for the exam, rely' ing on his command of the subject to pull hu'1 through. At the blackboard he solved the problem given him by his own method, com' ing out in the end with the right ansWer' cheating by using a pony or trot. At an oh1' cial investigation, a board of officers ga'e father a similar problem to solve. Once mom with his own original method, he came up with the right answer. The board, finding hlS exposition in order, rendered a verdict of uot guilty, and the case was dismissed.
There was no question but that fathel enjoyed his years at the Academy. He be came lightweight boxing champion, d?' veloped considerable skill with brush paint, and delighted his friends by playin- them tunes on his fiddle.
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class of 86 survived the rigorous courses a11 ^ training to graduate with father in June 0 1873. His grades were published along vd*1 those of his classmates. He ranked ninth 111 over-all scholastic standing, and ninth in the number of disciplinary demerits earned at the Academy.
One morning, for example, he rushed t0 roll call without his collar. On another da) he was reported for leaving “books adn and skylarking in the corridor.” He nevet resented discipline, but rather admired thos*j who were alert enough to catch him, afl when it came his turn to keep order, he per
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His interest in science had been obvious, f°r he led the class in optics and acoustics. He held second place in mathematics, heat and climatology, third in statics. In seamanship, however, he ranked twenty-fifth in the class, and this deplorable fact did not escape Admiral John L. Worden’s notice. Upon handing ather his certificate of graduation, the Admiral said: “If in the future, you’ll give ess attention to scientific matters and more to your naval gunnery, there might come a hme when you would know enough to be of s°rne service to your country.” My father never forgot the sting of those words as long as he lived.
After graduation and the usual time at sea, father became an instructor in physics and chemistry at the Naval Academy. He worked ander the supervision of Commander Wil- lam T. Sampson, who was later to distinguish himself as commander of the squadron blockading Santiago, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War.
Sampson often brought his young assistant home to dinner. And when Mrs. Sampson’s Utece, Margaret Heminway, came to Annapolis for a visit, my father was introduced to her as a matter of course. She was a strikingly beautiful girl and she seems to have been hoiriediatcly attracted to him, for in a letter ^calling their meeting, she wrote a description of “the handsome young officer with the brilliant eyes.”
By the end of the summer, Margaret and Albert were secretly engaged and eventually he Went to call on her family to ask her ather’s permission to marry Margaret. On his visit he became aware of the power and elegance of the family into which he hoped marry. Margaret’s father, Albert Gallatin fcminway had been trained for a legal career, but he had retired early after consPicuous success on Wall Street. The world °f these fashionable New Yorkers, their town apd country houses, good clubs, and frequent baps to Europe, was a far cry from that of ather’s immigrant parents who had struggled 0 keep their drygoods store from failure in
scarcely have been enthusiastic about the match, he gave his consent. There was also a Navy tradition in the family, and furthermore, Heminway must have seen that his daughter was very deeply in love. On 10 April 1877, when Margaret was 18 and Albert 24, their wedding took place at the Heinin- ways’ estate, “The Towers” in New Rochelle, New York.
The Michelsons’ honeymoon was cut short by his orders to report to the U. S. Frigate Constellation for the annual “get-acquainted” cruise with the midshipmen. Older than the U. S. Navy itself, and a veteran of six major wars, the Constellation had been launched in Philadelphia in 1797. She was in fact, America’s oldest ship. Father slept on the berth deck in a hammock slung between overhead beams, which he found difficult to get used to. Whenever he turned over in his sleep, he bounced out onto the deck.
But Annapolis manners and training had efiuipped him with some sophistication and b°lish, so that although Heminway could
He was photographed at his work table at the University of Chicago at about the time he won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Michelson Museum
In spite of the success of steam power in the Civil War, my father’s cruising was done entirely under sail. He was given to understand that his reputation depended almost entirely on his ability to handle sailing ships. Although controversy raged among strategists over the issues of steam versus sail, father did not allow himself to be drawn into these arguments. His interest lay more closely with theories of pure science than with its practical application. Besides, he enjoyed the ship’s movement under sail, and he had time to think during the long four-hour watches. His fine hand occurs frequently in the log: “Weather clear and pleasant—bright moonlight. Slack water at twelve.”
Sunburned and toughened by his summer cruise, my father returned to begin teaching at Annapolis where his young wife joined him. Margaret was pregnant. The winter of 1877— 78, which was to see the birth of his son, became a turning point in father’s career, for it
was at this time that he began his serious pfe" occupation with the mysterious phenomenon of light.
It began almost by accident. Commander Sampson called him in for an instruction on the physics course that he was to teach the advanced students. Sampson suggested that he begin with a demonstration of Foucault s measurement of the velocity of light, made with a rotating mirror. My father protested that he knew little about the method or background of the experiment. He was told to brush up a bit and take over the class He hoped he could bluff his way through it by keeping a jump ahead of his pupils in the text book.
Preparing himself for the first class, father was astonished to learn that only three meo in all history had attempted to find the speed of light by a terrestrial measurement. The importance of this physical constant had beeh recognized for some time as the only fundamental and absolute “constant” in the universe. It has since become the keystone °* modern science and the study of outer space’ These men were all 19 th century Frenchmen: Armand Hippolyte Fizeau, Alfred Marie Cornu, and Jean Foucault, whose work my father prepared to demonstrate-
Foucault was already famous for the inveh' tion of a pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the earth, when he devised this method for measuring the speed of light.
To determine the speed of light required but two ultimate measurements: (1) a distance; and (2) the time interval for light to travel that distance. The real difficulty lay in acquiring and applying the skill necessary to achieve significant precision of measure' ment.
Foucault’s method, depicted below and °fl the facing page, is as follows:
The light beam passes through a half silvered mirror and is focussed by a converging lens on a rotating plane mirror R. In certain positions the plane mirror reflected the diverging beam into a convex mirror 65.6 feet away when the mirror R was held steady, the beam retraced the same path and the reflected light coincided with the emerging light on the half silvered mirror. During the actual measurements, the mirror was spun rapidly. In the time required for the light to travel from the rotating to the convex mirror and back, the
In the course of demonstrating this meth- 0(I> father discovered certain faults. The ?IZe of the concave mirror was a factor which
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mirror turned through some small angle so that the beam was deflected from its original Path (dotted line). That angle, which Foucault used as a measure of time lapse, could be found from the distance by which the return- ■ng beam’s image was separated from the emerging beam at the observation point. Foucault measured the displacement against a scale scratched on the mirror. From the deflection and the speed of mirror rotation, Foucault calculated a value of 185,000 miles per second for the speed of light.
United the path of light and therefore the ^-'flection of the returning beam. No lens was Placed between the rotating and convex 'airrors to focus the beam which spread itself °llt as the distance between mirrors was in- '■rca.sed. In order to increase this distance, ather redesigned the experiment. It was esSentially the introduction of a lens between rotating and plane mirrors that enabled lrtl to increase the path of light to 1,000 feet ®nd permit a greater deflection of the returnIng beam.
To gather the necessary equipment, father Ransacked every laboratory storeroom in the ^aval Academy. The students were set to ^°rk constructing the mountings and adapt- *ag all existing apparatus to his purpose.
: c was lucky enough to borrow from Dr.
the sun moves across the sky. The rotating mirror, a disc of plane glass, one inch in diameter, he paid for with ten dollars of his own money.
The completed apparatus was rudimentary. Tom O’Donnell, my father’s assistant the last 20 years of his life, described this:
powered, and directed blasts of air against one half of the disc, causing it to rotate on the pivots.
At about this time, my father learned of the interest of Simon Newcomb, the astronomer, in measuring the speed of light. Newcomb was an older man in an established position. He was an eminent member of the National Academy of Science, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and head of the Nautical Almanac in Washington, a compilation that presented physical phenomena for the aid of navigation. Father wrote to Newcomb as follows.
Professor Newcomb: April 26, 1878
Dear Sir:
Having read in the “Tribune” an extract of your paper on a method of finding the velocity of light, and hearing through Capt. Sampson and Capt. Howell that you were interested in my own experiments, I trust that I am not taking too great a liberty in laying before you a brief account of what I have done. The principle of the method is as follows:
S (the source of light) is a straight edge from which the light proceeds; RM a (revolving) plane mirror; L, an achromatic lens of long focus, and M, a plane mirror. The edge S is so placed that its image, formed by the lens, coincides with the plane mirror M. With this arrangement the light retraces its path so as to form an image which coincides with S when the rotating mirror is at rest .... When the motion is rapid, the image is . . . deflected.
In the last experiment I made, the distance MS was 15'; RM-M 500'. The deflection was about 0.3". The distance RM-S might be considerably increased, and the deflection, proportionately.
Unfortunately as I was about to make an accurate observation the mirror flew out of its bearings and broke.
It would give me great pleasure, dear Sir, if you could honor me with an interview, in
which you could advise me how to arrange some of the details so as to insure good results.
Believe me Sir, your obedient servant Albert Michelson, Ensign, U.S.N-
Newcomb hurried down to Annapolis to see at firsthand the results that father had achieved. His first advice, after he had studied the original design of the experiment, was to encourage him to write at once to the Amer1' can Journal of Science.
There had been great rejoicing at the Michelson’s house over the birth of a son i° January. Margaret had waited for her father’s arrival from New Rochelle for the christening, as it was in his honor that the baby was named Albert Heminway Michel- son. During his visit, the wealthy stockbroker was given a demonstration of the experiment to which he generously contributed $2,000.00 for further investigation on a larger scale.
The success of his first experiment led my father toward a career in pure science. Two years of study in Berlin while on leave from the Navy, ended with the invention of the Michelson interferometer, a grant from Alexander Graham Bell, and the first ether drift experiment. At this point, he was faced with the decision of whether to follow the ordinary course of his naval career, which would send him to sea for two years, or to send in his resignation. An offer of the first chair o physics from the Case School of Applied Science, in Cleveland, gave him the opportunity to continue his research while teaching- He made the choice, but it was not without regret that he underwent this separation from the Navy.
In later years, the flimsiest excuse would find him back in uniform. At the first sign ot trouble with Spain in 1898, father was patrolling the coast of Lake Michigan as commander of the first ship’s crew of the Illinois Naval Militia.
In 1917, cursing the Kaiser and his goosestepping Huns, he left his laboratory to offer himself for active duty once more. Although he did not look it, the records showed that he was 65, and he had to be content with a commission in the Naval Reserve and an assignment at the Bureau of Ordnance. Here, he perfected his design for a range-finder, invented a device for the ear to prevent shellshock, and measured the “striae” or flaws iu
°ptical glass, which have a different refractive index from the main body of the glass. He retired, in 1918, with the rank of commander.
I have told you something about Michel- i s°n in the Navy, but I cannot resist a touch or two of the Navy in Michelson.
The truth is that he clung so avidly to methods of teaching learned at Annapolis that, even as late as 1929, several of his pupils told me the formula was unchanged; two Uninterrupted lectures during the week and a cross-examination on Fridays, which struck terror into the heart of anyone unprepared. He never encouraged intimacy with any of his pupils. Dr. Karl Darrow, Secretary of the American Physical Society wrote:
I was your father’s student for five years, but I never would presume to say that I knew him.
They all agree there was something of the Sea captain about him; a tough man to cross and sometimes downright unreasonable. One Poor fellow interrupted him at the beginning a lecture series to say that the course he '''as attending was listed as Wave Motion and Interference, whereas Father had begun | teaching a course on Diffraction, which this student had already completed. “Can anything be done about it?” he asked timidly. ‘Yes,” snapped my father, “you can take Vour card back to the office and turn it in.” However much the theorists of modern l education might have disapproved of his Methods, they cannot dispute the fact that he was a stimulating man to work under, if Vou could stand the gaff. Most of his students distinguished themselves in later years.
My sisters and I, the children of his second Carriage, were in awe of father. But with [ Us, he was so gentle and patient that we had 'he feeling we had “tamed” him. He did not frt us grow up without sharing his love of the Sea and of sailing. He kept a small boat in Vvhich he gave my sisters and me sailing frssons. Standing on the end of the dock, he , "'Quid call nautical directions to us through a megaphone. Sometimes he would sing out, Man overboard!” which meant we must bring the little boat about and execute a rescue maneuver. •
Father’s devotion to the Navy took second
place only in relation to his romantic feeling about light. “The apostle of light” one writer called him. His enthusiasm carried him awav at times so that if you asked him a simple question like why the sky is blue, he was apt to give you a full-scale answer which, as physicists know, involves the propagation and scattering of light particles. This would lead to a short dissertation on the virtues of the undulatory theory of light.
My sister Madeleine fell into this trap at the age of eight. Her attention began to wander, and when father noticed that she was no longer listening, he was offended, but he soon forgave her. “It doesn’t matter if you understand how light travels,” he said, “as long as you realize the wonder of it.”