Edward Williams Morley
(January 29, 1838 - February 24, 1923) was an American
scientist famous for the
Michelson-Morley
experiment.
Early life
Morley was
born in Newark, New
Jersey
and grew up in West Hartford,
Connecticut
. He graduated from
Williams College in 1860.
Career
From 1869
to 1906 he was professor of chemistry at Western Reserve College (which was
federated into today's Case Western Reserve University
).
His best remembered work, which he did together with
Albert Abraham Michelson in 1887,
was the
Michelson–Morley
experiment. Neither he nor Michelson ever considered that it
disproved the
aether hypothesis.
However, others did, and it ultimately led to
Einstein's
theory of relativity. Morley also
worked with
Dayton Miller on positive
aether experiments after his work with Michelson.
Morley also worked on the
oxygen composition of the
atmosphere,
thermal expansion, and the
velocity of light in a
magnetic field.
Honors
Morley was president of the
American
Association for the Advancement of Science (1895) and president
of the
American Chemical
Society (1899). Morley won the Davy Medal of the Royal Society
of London (1907) and the
Elliott
Cresson Medal (1912) awarded by the Franklin Institute of the
State of Pennsylvania for important contributions to Chemical
Science. Willard Gibbs Medal of the Chicago Section of the American
Chemical Society (1899).
The lunar
crater Morley
was named
for him. The
Morley
Elementary School in West Hartford was also named for him.
His
home
in West Hartford was made a National Historic
Landmark in 1975.
External links
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