Albert Michelson (Michelson-Morley experiment): 1852-1931
Michelson did not see how he had helped physics by shattering the belief of the mysterious "aether." Nevertheless, he calculated one of the most accurate values for the speed of light in 1923. His initial value was 299,798 km/s for the speed of light. His final results were completed in 1933 after his death and were 299,774 km/s which differed from the accepted value of 1970 by only 2 km/s. In 1907, for his work on determining the speed of light, Albert Michelson became the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Physics. Michelson's interferometer had different applications as well. For example, he used a modified version of his interferometer attached to a telescope for making the first successful measurement of a star’s diameter (Betelgeuse) in 1920.
Sources:http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html
http://www.usd.edu/phys/courses/phys300/gallery/clark/mich.html
Michelson did not see how he had helped physics by shattering the belief of the mysterious "aether." Nevertheless, he calculated one of the most accurate values for the speed of light in 1923. His initial value was 299,798 km/s for the speed of light. His final results were completed in 1933 after his death and were 299,774 km/s which differed from the accepted value of 1970 by only 2 km/s. In 1907, for his work on determining the speed of light, Albert Michelson became the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Physics. Michelson's interferometer had different applications as well. For example, he used a modified version of his interferometer attached to a telescope for making the first successful measurement of a star’s diameter (Betelgeuse) in 1920.
Sources:http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html
http://www.usd.edu/phys/courses/phys300/gallery/clark/mich.html
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