Bonanza: Look to the Stars - Albert Michelson Light Speed Measurement

Videos for Engineers

Albert Michelson is a name known to anyone who has taken (and paid attention during) a course in physics for his being the first person to accurately measure the speed of light in air. Born in 1852 to Jewish parents in Poland, his family emigrated to America in 1855 initially settling in Virginia City, Nevada. That happens to be where the fictional TV family of the Cartwrights owned their sprawling Ponderosa ranch in the series Bonanza. Screenwriters for the show took a bit of historical liberty in depicting young Michelson as having attending primary school in Virginia City, whereas the Nobel Prize website biography has him going to school in San Francisco. Albert, boy genius, has sacrificed the learning of social graces for the greater goal of science, and thereby got himself expelled from school because the schoolmaster labeled him a troublemaker. Ben Cartwright's more learned son, Adam (Pernell Roberts), takes Michelson under his wing and provides the opportunity needed to nurture and explore crazy ideas like measuring the intensity of sound waves and determining the speed of light. After getting to know Albert better, local heroes and all-around good citizens Ben, Little Joe, Hoss, and Adam do some investigation into the claim of troublemaker that ended in expulsion.

I won't spoil the ending, but suffice it to remind you that Albert Michelson did indeed obtain an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland (a few miles from where I grew up), and in 1907 was awarded the Nobel Prize for his precise measurement of the speed of light.

Bonanza: Look to the Stars

Posted April 28, 2017