The 1931 Meeting Between Einstein & Michelson in Irvine
One evening in March 1931, a lone car made its way along an unlighted road in “the wilds of Santa Ana,” as one passenger later described it, toward the vast open space of the Irvine Ranch.
When it arrived at the Ranch, the car pulled up to an odd two-story wooden building from which a 3-foot-wide metal pipe extended as far as the eye could see into the darkness.
The car door opened and Albert Einstein stepped out into the dim lamplight from the scientific station, to be greeted by another giant of 20th century physics, Dr. Albert Michelson. (Michelson Drive in Irvine is named after Dr. Albert Michelson.)
Michelson came to the Irvine Ranch in 1929 after doing a series of experiments at the Mt. Wilson Observatory to measure the speed of light. Not satisfied with those results, Michelson proposed — and was awarded funding for — a mile-long vacuum tube with mirrors at each end to bounce a light beam back and forth many times to get a more accurate measurement of its speed.
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