GlennT writes:

> Jim Phillips wrote:
>
>  > The Nobel prize for physics was awarded to Jack St. Clair Kilby:
>
>  Now, you must know that I can't let this one slip by.  Did you know he is a
>  native Kansan?  He graduated from Great Bend High School (about 25 miles
>  north of where I live).  It is BIG time news around these parts...

Of course, everyone is from somewhere, but as long as I'm rattling on, one of
the most interesting people in regards as to where he came from is the first
American to win a Nobel Prize in physics, Albert A. Michaelson.

As a child member of a Jewish family that emigrated from Prussia in the
1850's, he settled with his family in Virginia City, Nevada, during the
height of the gold rush there. His father was a merchant in the town, a
mining town just about as wild and as rough as any place you could find on
the planet. The family lived above the store, in a small apartment.

Virginia City was the fictional location for the old TV show, "Bonanza",
which was set in the same time as the gold rush. Indeed, in the very first
episode of that show, Ben Cartwright denounces the town as a modern Sodom and
Gomorrah. One of the later episodes, much later, when the tone of the show
calmed down, featured a story about Albert Michaelson as a boy.

The thing that I've always liked about Michaelson's story is that his first
scientific paper and his last had exactly the same title. A little symmetry
to a life well lived.

Wirt Atmar