Albert Abraham Michelson

Albert Abraham Michelson, (pronunciation anglicized as "Michael-son", December 19, 1852 - May 9, 1931), was a Prussian-born American physicist known for his work on the measurement of the speed of light, and especially for the Michelson-Morley experiment. In 1907 he received a Nobel prize for physics, the first American to receive the Nobel Prize in the sciences.

Astronomical Interferometry

In 1920-1921 Michelson and Francis G. Pease famously became the first people to measure the diameter of a star other than our Sun. They used an astronomical interferometer at the Mount Wilson Observatory to measure the diameter of the supergiant star Betelgeuse. The measurement of stellar diameters and the separations of binary stars took up an increasing amount of Michelson's life after this.

Related Topics:
Francis G. Pease - Astronomical interferometer - Mount Wilson Observatory - Betelgeuse

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