Albert Abraham Michelson

Physics

Albert Michelson won the physics Nobel Prize in 1907 "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid.” Michelson built an interferometer to measure the speed of light in ether. It was believed during his time that light must travel in something (as all waves known at the time did). This something that was believed to fill all space between particles was called the ether. Michelson, along with Morely, conducted an experiment that proved there was no ether, and light (as well as all electromagnetic waves) did not require a material (medium) to travel through.