Physics

Unpublished vellum document, 49.5cm x 37.5cm 1910 The Doctoral Diploma of Dr. Alan Wilfred Cranbrook Menzies in Chemistry and Physics, signed by the German-American physicist Albert Abraham Michelson (1852-1931) as "Albertus Abraham Michelson,"as the Head of the Physics Department at the University of Chicago. The other signatories were: Johann Ulrich Nef, the Swiss chemist who determined the valency of carbon in 1862; Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed, who convinced John D. Rockefeller to create the University of Chicago; Martin Antoine Ryerson; Alonzo Ketcham Parker, Professor of the History of Missions and member of the Faculty Senate; George Edgar Vincent, the noted sociologist and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and, Henry Pratt Judson, the President of the University of Chicago. A.A. Michelson was born in Strelno, Prussia and emigrated with his parents to America, where he was nominated to the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1873. Michelson is known for his accurate measurements of the speed of light, testing the data of Foucault's experiments, and with his own apparatus (the interferometer) measured the speed of light by measuring the length of the standard meter in Paris in terms of the wavelength of the red line of the cadmium spectrum. With E.W. Morley, he refuted the ether hypothesis and contributed to the development of Einstein's theory of relativity. Michelson was also the first to measure the diameter of a star. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1907, the first for the United States in any science and second only to President Theodore Roosevelt's Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906. The recipient of this doctoral degree, Alan W. C. Menzies, was born in Edinburgh July 11, 1877 and received his early education in Scotland at Daniel Stewart's College. After graduating as M.A. from the University of Edinburgh in 1898, he taught for several years at Heriot-Watt College and at St. Mungo's College, Glasgow. From 1904 to 1907 he was organizer and director of the Department of Agricultural and Technical Instructions for Ireland. In 1908, Menzies accepted an invitation from Alexander Smith, then Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago, to accept a post as research associate in his department. Together, Smith and Menzies developed the isoteniscope, an apparatus for the exact measurement of vapor pressures. In 1910, Menzies received his Ph. D. from the University of Chicago, and he had already been appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry there. In 1912, Menzies was called to Oberlin College as Professor of Chemistry. In 1914, Menzies transfered to Princeton University, where he remained, retiring from the post of Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry in 1945, having been one of the first physical chemists in the United States. Dr. Menzies published more than 80 papers both in America and Europe, dying in Princeton on September 8, 1966. He was survived by his only child, the noted photographer-historian, Elizabeth G.C. Menzies. The condition of this Latin text document is fine, showing some spotting in the lower margin and slight creasing from having been rolled up for the better part of the twentieth century. more information

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