Edward Morley
<<This article is too short and needs to be fleshed out. One source is Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. It mentions that he attended Andover Theological Seminary and hoped to become a Congregational minister someday. When he was given the post of professor at Western Reserve College, he took it on condition that he could preach at the University chapel.>>
Edward Williams Morley (January 29, 1838 - February 24 1923) was an American scientist.
Early life
Morley was born in Newark, New Jersey, the eldest son of Sardis Brewster Morley and Anna Clarissa Treat. Morley was schooled at home until he was almost 20, when his family moved to Williamstown, Mass. so that he and his three brothers could attend Williams College, the alma mater of his father. Morley graduated from Williams with a bachelor of science in 1860, and the following year, enetered Adnover Theological Seminary. He continued studying at Williams, earning a masters in 1863, and graduated from Andover in 1864. As the American civil war had not yet ended, Morley traveled to Virginia, where he was assigned duty on the Sanitary Commission, which took care of the medical needs of troops.
He taught at South Berkshire Academy in Marloro, Mass, and married Isabella Ashley Birdsall in 1868. He accepted a position as minister at a congregational church in Twinsburg, Ohio, and in 1869 became the Hurlbut Professor of Chemistry and Natural History at Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio. When he arrived at the college, the only equipment available in the college laboratory was an alcohol lamp and a Wollaston's logarithmic slide rule for calculating atomic weights, along with a few bottles and flasks. He was supplied some funding to upgrade the laboratory, and laboratory classes became mandatory for all chemistry students. Morley's duties also required him to teach all mathematics for the Freshman year. <<<Anonymous. 1900. Western Reserve University: reports of the president and faculties (1899-1900). Cleveland: Western Reserve University. 64-66.>>>
Morley's first important experiments related to the conjecture by the astronomer Elias Loomis, whith whom it appears Morley and his family boarded, that cold spells are due to an exchange between the lower and upper atmosphere, rather than by cooler currents from colder regions of the earth migrating to warmer. John Dalton suggested that the percentage of oxygen in the lower atmosphere should be greater than in the upper atmosphere, due to oxygen's greater density than the other components such as nitrogen. While this difference had not been detected, Morley believed that if Loomis's conjecture was true, that the atmosphere in a cold spell would contain less oxygen than otherwise. Morley refined equipment originally developed by Regnault and Frankland, that could make more accurate determinations of the oxygen content. He found that during cold spells measured in Hudson, there was indeed a fluctuation in the oxygen content as predicted by Dalton. His equipment enabled him to make measurements with an error of less than one hundreth of one percent. The results of his work were reported at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Saratoga Springs in 1879.<<<American Association for the Advancement of Science. 1848. <<<Summarized proceedings and a directory of members. Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, August, 1880.>>>
In 1882, Western Reserve was moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and Morley continued his teaching duties there. On the way back from a scientific meeting in Montreal, Morley and Alfred Michelson, who taught at Case, also in Cleveland, discussed collaborating on an experiment that Michelson had performed in 1880 to determine whether the speed of light was affected by the earth's movement through the hypothetical medium that was believed to transmit light waves. Michelson had set up an elaborate apparatus to test this hypothesis, but it was wanting in accuracy and the circumstances under which he performed the experiments were less than ideal. Their work was delayed when in 1885, Michelson suffered a mental breakdown and spent time in New York City recovering. In 1886, a fire at Case destroyed Michelson's laboratory facilities, and Morley offered his for the experiment. The two received funding to complete an improved apparatus, which was constructed by Morley, rather than outcontracted to a firm as Michelson had been in the habit of doing. In 1887 they succeeded in yielding results that showed no change in the speed of light, regardless of the direction in which it was measured relative to the earth's orbital motion.
During this period, Morley had developed a strong interest in Prout's hypothesis, that the atomic weights of the elements were simple integral multiples of that of Hydrogen. To test this hypothesis, Morley experimentally determined the quantity of hydrogen that combined with oxygen to form water through a new apparatus designed specifically for the purpose. He reported his results at the 1890 meeting of the AAAS, the density of oxygen being 15.884 times that of hydrogen, and thus failing to meet the criteria of Prout's hypothesis by a small amount. This discrepancy was later resolved by positing that more than one form of oxygen existed, each having the same chemical properties but a different atomic weight, those atomic weights, howeer, being integral multiples of that of hydrogen, as Prout had suggested.
Morley at that time also tested the laws of combining volumes of gas of hydrogen with respect to oxygen, and found that the ratio of one to the other in the formation of water was 2.0005.
Morley continued to conduct research on the speed of light apart from Michelson, and found that light travels faster in the presence of a magnetic field. He was given a grant by the association to continue his experiments. <<<Nature, v. 42. Sep. 25, 1890. New York: Macmillan and Co. 528-530.>>>
Morley met Michelson, who taught at Case University, also in Cleveland.
and grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, where he is currently the namesake of Morley Elementary School in West Hartford. He graduated from Williams College in 1860.
Career
From 1869 to 1906 he was professor of chemistry at Western Reserve College (today Case Western Reserve University).
His best remembered work, which he did together with Albert Abraham Michelson, was the Michelson–Morley experiment in 1887. 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.
See also
External links
- Edward Williams Morley from the Encyclopædia Britannica
Credits
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