Albert Abraham Michelson (1852-1931), Polish-born American physicist. Michelson is best known for his work measuring the speed of light, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907. After studying in America and Europe he accepted a professorship at the Case School of Applied Science in Ohio, USA. There he collaborated with Edward Morley to prove the non-existance of the aether, the medium through which light waves were presumed to travel, in the famous Michelson-Morley experiment. Later in his career he pursued his interest in astronomy at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena. This portrait is from the Bain News Service, one of America's oldest news picture agencies, which holds images dating from the 1890s to the 1930s.