Michelson Memorial Lecture Series

Each year since 1981, a distinguished scientist has come to the Naval Academy to present the Michelson Lecture. These scientists have represented a variety of scientific disciplines, including chemistry, physics, mathematics, oceanography, and computer science.

Complete List of Distinguished Speakers

Year	Speaker
2007	Sir Harold W. Kroto 1996 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry "Architecture in Nanospace"
2006	Dr. James J. Heckman 2000 Nobel Laureate in Economics "Skills, Schools and Synapses"
2005	Dr. Jeffrey Weeks Freelance Mathematician "The Shape of Space"
2004	Dr. Howard Bluestein "Mobile Doppler Radar Observations of Tornadoes"
2003	Professor William D. Phillips NIST and University of Maryland "Time, Einstein, and the Coolest Stuff in the Universe"
2002	Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland, Nobel Laureate Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine. "The 21st Century Atmosphere: Changes and Consequences"
2001	Dr. David Donoho, (images) Stanford University "Data! Data! Data! Challenges and Opportunities of the Coming Data Deluge" (download, pdf format)
2000	Dr. Vinton G. Cerf Senior Vice President of Internet Architecture and Technology
1999	Dr. Sylvia Earl, Deep Ocean Explorer, 1998-2002 National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence,  and Chairman, DOER Marine Operations, Inc.
1998	Dr. Leon N. Cooper, Nobel Laureate Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Professor of Science, Brown University Department of Physics  and Director, Institute for Brain and Neural Systems
1997	Dr. Dudley R. Herschbach, Nobel Laureate Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science, Harvard University
1996	Dr. Aaron Hauptman, Nobel Laureate Hauptman-Woodward Research Foundation
1995	Dr. Arnold Penzias, Nobel Laureate Bell Laboratories
1994	Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan NOAA Chief Scientist and Astronaut
1993	Dr. Richard E. Smalley, Nobel Laureate Rice University
1992	Dr. Michael F. Shlesinger Director of Physics, Office of Naval Research
1991	Dr. John H. Conway Princeton University
1990	Dr. Richard Hamming Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
1989	Dr. Robert Ballard Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
1988	Dr. Stirling A. Colgate Los Alamos
1987	Dr. James A. Watson, Nobel Laureate  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
1986	Dr. Ronald L. Graham Bell Laboratories
1985	Admiral Grace Hopper United States Navy
1984	Honorable James M. Beggs National Aeronautics and Space Administration
1983	Dr. Arthur L. Schawlow, Nobel Laureate Stanford University
1982	Dr. Charles H. Townes, Nobel Laureate University of California at Berkeley
1981	Dr. Herbert C. Brown, Nobel Laureate Purdue University

More on the History of the Michelson Lecture Series

...By the 1870’s the program at the Academy had changed significantly. Now midshipmen could expect to be students for four years instead of five (three of these aboard ship), and there was a much greater emphasis on academic subjects rather than at sea training. This new format earned the Academy the award at the Paris Exposition of 1879. The school was rated as having the best educational system in the United States.

The last thirty years of the nineteenth century saw a flurry of advances in science: physics came into its own and the experimentation going on would lead Albert Einstein to postulate his now-famous Theory of Relativity. The Naval Academy played a small role on the way to Relativity. In the late 1870’s, a Navy lieutenant and instructor in the Academy’s Department of Physics, Albert Michelson, performed his now-famous experiments to measure the velocity of light. These experiments were fundamental to the eventual development, by Einstein, of the Relativity Theory. In 1907 Michelson, a graduate of the Naval Academy class of 1873, became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize. Today, the science wing (dedicated in the spring of 1969) at the Academy is named Michelson Hall.

...Taken from "Annapolis, the United States Naval Academy," by David Pahl, 1987, Exetar Books.

Sponsored by the Naval Academy Alumni Association