Professor A. A. Michelson, world-famous Jewish scientist, now 76 years old, has set for himself three tasks which he will perform, he says, before he can consider his life’s work completed. These tasks, as he listed them yesterday, are:
1. Measure the speed of light more accurately than it ever has been measured before, thus improving upon his own most celebrated scientific attainment.
2. Perfect a method by which the diameter of stars may be measured with greater exactness than heretofore has been possible.
3. Complete a final test of the Einstein theory of relativity, a theory which startled the scientific world some years ago, and which was based upon Michelson’s own calculations.
When he has performed these three tasks, any one of which might well be undertaken as a life career by a younger scientist, Professor Michelson may enjoy “a bit of leisure”; he may, but those who have been closest to him predict confidently that he won’t.
“While the universe still holds an unsolved riddle,” said one of his University of Chicago associates, “Professor Michelson will keep on working.”
His program for the immediate future was outlined by him in an address before the Chicago Woman’s Club. He said he would take up the three tasks as soon as he has completed his lecture course at the university, which will be next month. “I shall then return to the Mt. Wilson Observatory in California,” he said, “to resume my investigations.”
Professor Michelson said he was “almost convinced” that Einstein is right in his belief in the non-existence of what the scientific world calls the ether. It was only last November that Professor Michelson, speaking before the Optical Society of Chicago, expressed a doubt of the rightness of Einstein on that one point. In explaining his love for the science to which he has devoted his long life, he said: “It is the pitting of one’s brain against bits of iron, metals and crystals and making them do what you want them to do. When you are successful, that is all the reward you want.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
