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1415_33 | Shaw and Edna returned to the United States in 1922, arriving at Ellis Island in September, over two months before the release in London of Harold's final film for Stoll, Love and a Whirlwind. Soon the couple left New York and resettled in California, in Los Angeles, where by the summer of 1923 Shaw began directing screen projects for Metro Pictures. His first one for that studio is Rouged Lips and stars his sister-in-law Viola Dana. The silent romantic comedy was well received by both critics and audiences, with the Chicago-based reviewing service Screen Opinions judging the production to be "neatly directed" and its content "clean, full of ginger". |
1415_34 | Two other releases that the director completed for Metro are the 1923 drama Held to Answer, currently considered lost, and the 1924 drama A Fool's Awakening. The casting of A Fool's Awakening prompted the entertainment media and the Los Angeles film community to observe how Shaw's years of experience residing and working in England influenced his selection of performers. In its January 5, 1924 issue, the trade journal Moving Picture World in a news item headed "English Types in Films" stated, "Aristocratic appearing Britons have been at a premium in Hollywood ever since Harold Shaw began the direction of 'The Fool's Awakening'", adding "More than three hundred and fifty persons, each bearing the unmistakable stamp of British aristocracy, appeared in one of the great scenes." |
1415_35 | In addition to directing and planning future film projects in Hollywood, Shaw became increasingly active in local and national professional organizations, especially in the Motion Picture Directors Association (MPDA). He was elected secretary of the association in October 1925, just a few months before his untimely death. |
1415_36 | Personal life |
1415_37 | Shaw married twice. On October 29, 1900, he wed 22-year-old Myrtle Chapman in Wilmington, Delaware at the parsonage of Minister C. A. Grise. Their marriage ended by divorce before April 4, 1910, when Myrtle married again in New York City. Seven years later, Shaw also remarried, then to actress Edna Flugrath. During his time working at Edison Studios, he met Flugrath, who was a native of Brooklyn, New York and a contract player with the studio. The couple, not yet married, were separated in 1913 when Shaw left the United States to direct films in London, but Flugrath followed him overseas the next year after her own contract with Edison expired. She worked as a lead as well as a support player in many productions that Shaw directed in England and later in South Africa, where they married. On January 5, 1917three weeks after the release of De Voortrekkersthe couple wed in Johannesburg. They then departed on an extended trip to India, Ceylon, China, Japan, Siam, Egypt, and England for |
1415_38 | the dual purposes of honeymooning and, as cited in their passport applications, for conducting "Moving picture business" at all those destinations. The two remained together until Harold's death nine years later. Edna survived him by 40 years, dying in San Diego, California in April 1966. The couple had no children. |
1415_39 | Death |
1415_40 | On January 30, 1926, Shaw died in an automobile accident in Los Angeles, where the car in which he was a passenger collided with another vehicle at the intersection of Sixth Street and Rossmore Avenue. Contemporary reports of the crash state that one of Shaw's friends, who was driving the vehicle, was thrown clear by the impact and survived with only minor cuts and bruises. Shaw, however, was "buried underneath the car" when it overturned, and according to the findings of an inquest, he had died instantly in the wreck due to massive head trauma. Unfortunately, despite Harold M. Shaw's lengthy stage and film career, which spanned a full 30 years, he was still misidentified as "G. Harold Shaw" in the obituary that Variety published four days after his death. His years of association with film productions in London also led the New York trade paper in that same obituary to refer to the Tennessee-born director as "a native of England", and Variety also incorrectly cited his age as 38 |
1415_41 | instead of 48. |
1415_42 | A memorial service for Shaw was conducted in Hollywood "at the undertaker parlors of Strother & Dayton" on February 3, 1926 by members of the "233 Club", the local Masonic Temple. Since returning to California in 1923, the director had become active in not only professional organizations such as MPDA but also in the 233 Club, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1924 and required that every one of its members be "'a motion picture worker in any capacity'". Following the club's memorial service, Shaw's body was cremated and his final remains were enshrined at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Months after Shaw's death, in the June 1926 issue of Photoplay magazine, staff writer Dorothy Spensley reflects on the tragic irony of the director's accidental, rather mundane death after all of the dangerous adventures he and his wife had experienced during their film careers:
Selected filmography |
1415_43 | The Attack on the Mill (1910)
The Child and the Tramp (1911)
Bob and Rowdy (1911)
The Modern Dianas (1911)
The Three Musketeers (1911)
The Big Dam (1911)
Mary's Masquerade (1911)
The Death of Nathan Hale (1911)
Foul Play (1911)
Her Wedding Ring (1911)
A Conspiracy Against the King (1911)
The Kid From the Klondike (1911)
The Reform Candidate (1911)
The Black Arrow (1911)
Home, A Thanksgiving Story
The Lure of the City (1911)
The Awakening of John Bond (1911)
Santa Claus and the Clubman (1911)
Freezing Auntie (1912)
The Jewels (1912)
Mother and Daughters (1912)
Thirty Days at Hard Labor (1912)
A Question of Seconds (1912)
The Corsican Brothers (1912)
The Bachelor's Waterloo (1912)
Martin Chuzzlewit (1912)
The Convict's Parole (1912)
The Man Who Made Good (1912)
The Bank President's Son (1912)
Hearts and Diamonds (1912)
The Grandfather (1912)
Mary in Stage Land (1912)
The Girl from the Country (1912)
A Fresh Air Romance (1912) |
1415_44 | The Land Beyond the Sunset (1912)
The Old Reporter (1912)
The Third Thanksgiving (1912)
On Donovan's Division (1912)
A Christmas Accident (1912)
The Crime of Carelessness (1912)
The Wizard of the Jungle (1913)
''The Old Melody (1913)
The House of Temperley (1913)
Lawyer Quince (1914)
Liberty Hall (1914)
The Ring and the Rajah (1914)
Clancarty (1914)
Child o' My Heart (1914)
England's Menace (1914)
Trilby (1914)
Two Little Ambitions (1914)
For Home and Country (1914)
The King's Minister (1914)
Two Little Britons (1914)
The Victoria Cross (1914)
A Christmas Carol (1914)
Brother Officers (1915)
The Ashes of Revenge (1915)
The Heart of a Child (1915)
The Derby Winner (1915)
The Third Generation (1915)
Mr. Lyndon at Liberty (1915)
The Heart of Sister Ann (1915
The Firm of Girdlestone (1915)
Me and Me Moke (1916)
Me and M'Pal (1916)
You! (1916)
The Last Challenge (1916)
De Voortrekkers (1916)
Die Rose von Rhodesia (1918)
Thoroughbreds All |
1415_45 | The Land of Mystery (1920)
The Pursuit of Pamela (1920)
True Tilda (1920)
London Pride (1920)
The Woman of His Dream (1921)
Kipps (1921)
A Dear Fool (1921)
General John Regan (1921)
False Evidence (1922)
The Wheels of Chance (1922)
Rouged Lips (1923)
Held to Answer (1923)
A Fool's Awakening (1924) |
1415_46 | Notes
References
External links
1877 births
1926 deaths
Silent film directors
American stage actors
American male stage actors
Vaudeville performers
American male screenwriters
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Articles containing video clips
Male actors from Tennessee
Film directors from Tennessee
Screenwriters from Tennessee
Cinema pioneers
American film production company founders
Road incident deaths in California |
1416_0 | Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a syndrome (a set of signs and symptoms) due to decreased blood flow in the coronary arteries such that part of the heart muscle is unable to function properly or dies. The most common symptom is centrally located chest pain, often radiating to the left shoulder or angle of the jaw, crushing, central and associated with nausea and sweating. Many people with acute coronary syndromes present with symptoms other than chest pain, particularly women, older people, and people with diabetes mellitus.
Acute coronary syndrome is subdivided in three scenarios depending on the duration of symptoms, the presence of ECG changes and blood test results: ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI, 30%), non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI, 25%), or unstable angina (38%). Generally, when symptoms occur for less than 30 minutes, it is unstable angina. When symptoms are prolonged for more than 30 minutes, the diagnosis is acute myocardial infarction. |
1416_1 | ACS should be distinguished from stable angina, which develops during physical activity or stress and resolves at rest. In contrast with stable angina, unstable angina occurs suddenly, often at rest or with minimal exertion, or at lesser degrees of exertion than the individual's previous angina ("crescendo angina"). New-onset angina is also considered unstable angina, since it suggests a new problem in a coronary artery. |
1416_2 | Signs and symptoms
The cardinal symptom of critically decreased blood flow to the heart is chest pain, experienced as tightness around or over the chest and (often, but not always) radiating to the left arm and the left angle of the jaw. This may be associated with diaphoresis (sweating), nausea and vomiting, as well as shortness of breath. In many cases, the sensation is "atypical", with pain experienced in different ways or even being completely absent (which is more likely in female patients and those with diabetes). Some may report palpitations, anxiety or a sense of impending doom (angor animi) and a feeling of being acutely ill. The description of the chest discomfort as a pressure has little utility in aiding a diagnosis as it is not specific for ACS. |
1416_3 | Though ACS is usually associated with coronary thrombosis, it can also be associated with cocaine use. Chest pain with features characteristic of cardiac origin (angina) can also be precipitated by profound anemia, brady- or tachycardia (excessively slow or rapid heart rate), low or high blood pressure, severe aortic valve stenosis (narrowing of the valve at the beginning of the aorta), pulmonary artery hypertension and a number of other conditions. |
1416_4 | Pathophysiology
In those who have ACS, atheroma rupture is most commonly found 60% when compared to atheroma erosion (30%), thus causes the formation of thrombus which block the coronary arteries. Plaque rupture is responsible for 60% in ST elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) while plaque erosion is responsible for 30% of the STEMI and vice versa for Non ST elevated myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). In plaque rupture, the content of the plaque are lipid rich, collagen poor, with abundant inflammation which is macrophage predominant, and covered with a thin fibrous cap. Meanwhile, in plaque erosion, the plaque is rich with extracellular matrix, proteoglycan, glycoaminoglycan, but without fibrous caps, no inflammatory cells, and no large lipid core. After the coronary arteries are unblocked, there is a risk of reperfusion injury due spreading inflammatory mediators throughout the body. Investigations is still underway on the role of Cyclophilin D in reducing the reperfusion injury. |
1416_5 | Other causes of acute coronary syndrome include spontaneous coronary artery dissection and myocardial infarction in the absence of obstructive coronary artery disease (MINOCA), however these are far less common. |
1416_6 | Diagnosis
Electrocardiogram
In the setting of acute chest pain, the electrocardiogram is the investigation that most reliably distinguishes between various causes. The ECG should be done as early as practicable, including in the ambulance if possible. If this indicates acute heart damage (elevation in the ST segment, new left bundle branch block), treatment for a heart attack in the form of angioplasty or thrombolysis is indicated immediately (see below). In the absence of such changes, it is not possible to immediately distinguish between unstable angina and NSTEMI.
Imaging and blood tests
As it is only one of the many potential causes of chest pain, the patient usually has a number of tests in the emergency department, such as a chest X-ray, blood tests (including myocardial markers such as troponin I or T, and H-FABP and/or a D-dimer if a pulmonary embolism is suspected), and telemetry (monitoring of the heart rhythm). |
1416_7 | Combination of troponin levels (less than 5 ng/l) with low TIMI scores can help to predict those with low possibility of myocardial infarction and discharge them safely from the emergency department. Coronary CT angiography combined with Troponin levels is also helpful to triage those who are susceptible to ACS. F-fluoride positron emission tomography is also helpful in identifying those with high risk, lipid-rich coronary plaques. |
1416_8 | Prediction scores
The ACI-TIPI score can be used to aid diagnosis; using seven variables from the admission record, this score predicts crudely which patients are likely to have myocardial ischemia. For example, according to a randomized controlled trial, males having chest pain with normal or non-diagnostic ECG are at higher risk for having acute coronary syndrome than women. In this study, the sensitivity was 65.2% and specificity was 44%. This particular study had an 8.4% prevalence of acute coronary syndrome, which means the positive predictive value of being a male with chest pain and having coronary syndrome is 9.6% and negative predictive value is 93.2% ( click here to adjust these results for people at higher or lower risk of acute coronary syndrome). |
1416_9 | In a second cohort study, exercise electrocardiography was similarly found to be a poor predictor of acute coronary syndrome at follow-up. Of the patients who had a coronary event at 6 years of follow up, 47% had a negative ECG at the start of the study. With an average follow up of 2.21 years the receiver operating characteristic curves gave resting ECG a score of 0.72 and exercise ECG a score of 0.74. |
1416_10 | There are not only prediction scores for diagnosis of ACS, but also prognosis. Most notably, the GRACE ACS Risk and Mortality score helps diagnose, and based upon that score predicts mortality rate of a given patient. It takes into account both clinical (blood pressure, heart rate, EKG findings) and medical history in its scoring system.
Prevention
Acute coronary syndrome often reflects a degree of damage to the coronaries by atherosclerosis. Primary prevention of atherosclerosis is controlling the risk factors: healthy eating, exercise, treatment for hypertension and diabetes, avoiding smoking and controlling cholesterol levels; in patients with significant risk factors, aspirin has been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events. Secondary prevention is discussed in myocardial infarction. |
1416_11 | After a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places was introduced in Scotland in March 2006, there was a 17% reduction in hospital admissions for acute coronary syndrome. 67% of the decrease occurred in non-smokers.
Treatment
People with presumed ACS are typically treated with aspirin, clopidogrel or ticagrelor, nitroglycerin, and if the chest discomfort persists morphine. Other analgesics such as nitrous oxide are of unknown benefit. Angiography is recommended in those who have either new ST elevation or a new left or right bundle branch block on their ECG. Unless the person has low oxygen levels additional oxygen does not appear to be useful. |
1416_12 | STEMI |
1416_13 | If the ECG confirms changes suggestive of myocardial infarction (ST elevations in specific leads, a new left bundle branch block or a true posterior MI pattern), thrombolytics may be administered or primary coronary angioplasty may be performed. In the former, medication is injected that stimulates fibrinolysis, destroying blood clots obstructing the coronary arteries. In the latter, a flexible catheter is passed via the femoral or radial arteries and advanced to the heart to identify blockages in the coronaries. When occlusions are found, they can be intervened upon mechanically with angioplasty and usually stent deployment if a lesion, termed the culprit lesion, is thought to be causing myocardial damage. Data suggest that rapid triage, transfer and treatment is essential. The time frame for door-to-needle thrombolytic administration according to American College of Cardiology (ACC) guidelines should be within 30 minutes, whereas the door-to-balloon Percutaneous Coronary |
1416_14 | Intervention (PCI) time should be less than 90 minutes. It was found that thrombolysis is more likely to be delivered within the established ACC guidelines among patients with STEMI as compared to PCI according to a case control study. |
1416_15 | NSTEMI and NSTE-ACS
If the ECG does not show typical changes, the term "non-ST segment elevation ACS" is applied. The patient may still have suffered a "non-ST elevation MI" (NSTEMI). The accepted management of unstable angina and acute coronary syndrome is therefore empirical treatment with aspirin, a second platelet inhibitor such as clopidogrel, prasugrel or ticagrelor, and heparin (usually a low-molecular weight heparin), with intravenous nitroglycerin and opioids if the pain persists. The heparin-like drug known as fondaparinux appears to be better than enoxaparin.
A blood test is generally performed for cardiac troponins twelve hours after onset of the pain. If this is positive, coronary angiography is typically performed on an urgent basis, as this is highly predictive of a heart attack in the near-future. If the troponin is negative, a treadmill exercise test or a thallium scintigram may be requested. |
1416_16 | If there is no evidence of ST segment elevation on the electrocardiogram, delaying urgent angioplasty until the next morning is not inferior to doing so immediately. Using statins in the first 14 days after ACS reduces the risk of further ACS.
In a cohort study comparing NSTEMI and STEMI, people with NSTEMI had a similar risk of death at one year after PCI as compared to people with STEMI (3.4% vs 4.4%). However, NSTEMI had significantly more "major cardiac events" (death, myocardial infarction, disabling stroke, or requiring revascularization) at one year (24.0% vs 16.6%).
Cocaine-associated ACS should be managed in a manner similar to other patients with acute coronary syndrome except beta blockers should not be used and benzodiazepines should be administered early.
Prognosis
TIMI score
The TIMI risk score can identify high risk patients in non-ST segment elevation MI ACS and has been independently validated. |
1416_17 | Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) score
Based on a global registry of 102,341 patients, the GRACE Risk Score estimates in-hospital, 6 months, 1 year, and 3-year mortality risk after a heart attack. GRACE Score 2.0 Calculator.
Killip class
The Killip classification consists of 4 classes based on clinical symptoms. It predicts 30-day mortality after myocardial infarction. |
1416_18 | Biomarkers for diagnosis
The aim of diagnostic markers is to identify patients with ACS even when there is no evidence of heart muscle damage.
Ischemia-Modified Albumin (IMA) – In cases of Ischemia – Albumin undergoes a conformational change and loses its ability to bind transitional metals (copper or cobalt). IMA can be used to assess the proportion of modified albumin in ischemia. Its use is limited to ruling out ischemia rather than a diagnostic test for the occurrence of ischemia.
Myeloperoxidase (MPO) – The levels of circulating MPO, a leukocyte enzyme, elevate early after ACS and can be used as an early marker for the condition.
Glycogen Phosphorylase Isoenzyme BB-(GPBB) is an early marker of cardiac ischemia and is one of three isoenzyme of Glycogen Phosphorylase.
Troponin is a late cardiac marker of ACS |
1416_19 | Biomarkers for risk determination
The aim of prognostic markers is to reflect different components of pathophysiology of ACS. For example:
Natriuretic peptide – Both B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal Pro BNP can be applied to predict the risk of death and heart failure following ACS.
Monocyte chemo attractive protein (MCP)-1 – has been shown in a number of studies to identify patients with a higher risk of adverse outcomes after ACS.
Day of admission
Studies have shown that for ACS patients, weekend admission is associated with higher mortality and lower utilization of invasive cardiac procedures, and those who did undergo these interventions had higher rates of mortality and complications than their weekday counterparts. This data leads to the possible conclusion that access to diagnostic/interventional procedures may be contingent upon the day of admission, which may impact mortality. This phenomenon is described as weekend effect. |
1416_20 | Valvular heart disease
Valvular heart disease is characterized by damage to or defective in one of the four heart valves: the mitral, aortic, tricuspid or pulmonary. Some types of valvular heart disease include valvular stenosis, vascular prolapse and regurgitation. |
1416_21 | Oral manifestations
Oral infections may pose risk during postoperative period of heart valve surgery. Oral health in patients scheduled for heart valve surgery is poorer than in individuals without valve disease. Most of them suffer periodontitis due to high dental plaque scores, reflecting poorer dental hygiene. This situation could favour the appearance of bacteremia following tooth brushing in these individuals. Bacteremia secondary to periodontal infection is known to be one of the primary causes of infectious endocarditis, particularly in patient with heart valve disorders. Therefore, treatment of dental disease should be done prior to performing heart surgery. Periodontal treatment is advised in patients with advanced periodontitis, followed by root planing and ultrasound treatment. Those teeth not amenable to treatment and with poor prognosis should be removed as pre-surgical preventive measures. |
1416_22 | Dental management
The two main concerns during dental treatment for people of patient with valvular heart disease are the risk of infective endocarditis and bleeding in anti coagulated patients. Endocarditis is more likely to occur in patients who have previously had endocarditis and those with certain cardiac lesions. Risk of a normally functioning prosthesis being infected after a dental procedure is probably no higher than risk in patient with damaged native valves. However, mortality and morbidity is much higher should prosthesis become infected. Patient with native valve disease can often stop or reduce their anticoagulants, but those with prosthetic valves should not discontinue anticoagulants without cardiological advice. Mechanical mitral valves are prone to thrombosis, which cause emboli if adequate anti-coagulation is not maintained, although short term modification may be possible. |
1416_23 | Heart failure
Heart failure (HF) is defined as the incapacity of the heart to function properly, pumping insufficient blood towards the tissues and leading to fluid accumulation within the lungs, liver and peripheral tissues.
Oral manifestations
Most if not all patients with heart failure will be undergoing drug treatments for their condition and these drugs can produce a series of oral manifestation. In this context, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors such as captopril and enalapril can produce burning mouth sensation lichenoid reactions and a loss of taste sensation, while diuretics like furosemide can produce xerostomia. |
1416_24 | Dental management |
1416_25 | Consultation with the supervising physician is highly advised in order to understand the patient's current condition and the medication prescribed. The patient should be receiving medical care, and heart failure should be compensated. Dental treatment is to be limited to patients who are in stable condition, since these people are at a high risk of developing questionable arrhythmias and even sudden death secondary to cardiopulmonary arrest. Stress and anxiety are to be avoided during the visits, which in turn should be brief (< 30 minutes) and are to be scheduled for the morning sessions. The patient should be seated on the chair in a semi-supine position, with control of body movements (which should be slow), to avoid orthostatic hypotension. In patients who has been administered with digitalis agents (digoxin, methyl-digoxin), the vasoconstrictor dose should be limited to two anaesthetic carpules, since this drug combination can cause arrhythmias. Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) |
1416_26 | can lead to fluid and sodium retention, and therefore should not be prescribed in patients with heart failure. |
1416_27 | In emergency (i.e., lung edema), after contacting the emergency service, the patient should be seated with the legs lowered, and receiving nasal oxygen at a rate of 4–6 liters/minute. Sublingual nitroglycerin tablets are indicated (0.4-0.8 mg), and the dose may be repeated every 5 or 10 minutes if blood pressure is maintained.
Arrhythmia
Arrhythmias are variations in normal heart rate due to cardiac rhythm, frequency or contraction disorders. The most common type of cardiac arrhythmia is atrial fibrillation.
Oral manifestations
Many anti-arrhythmic drugs have side effects such as gingival hyperplasia or xerostomia. |
1416_28 | Dental management |
1416_29 | Consultation with the supervising physician is also advised in order to understand the patient's current condition and the type of arrhythmia involved, as well as the medication prescribed. It must be checked that the patient uses the medication correctly. Stress and anxiety can be reduced with anxiolytics. Short visits in the morning are to be preferred. Patient monitoring, with recording of the pulse, is indicated before treatment. It is very important to limit the use of vasoconstrictor in local anesthesia, with no more than two carpules. The treatment planned should not be too long or complicated. Although modern pacemakers are more resistant to electromagnetic interferences, caution is required when using electrical devices like ultrasound and electric scalpels that might interfere with pacemakers – especially the older models, since such devices developed in the last 30 years are bipolar and are generally not affected by the small electromagnetic fields generated by dental |
1416_30 | equipment. It is therefore important to know the type of pacemaker, the degree of electromagnetic protection of the generator, and the nature of the arrhythmia. If arrhythmia develops during dental treatment, the procedure should be suspended, oxygen is to be given, and the patient vital signs are to be assessed: body temperature (normal values: 35.5-37oC), pulse (normal values: 60-100 bpm), respiratory frequency (normal values in adults: 14-20 cycles or respirations per minute), blood pressure (normal values: systolic blood pressure under 140 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure under 90 mmHg). Sublingual nitrites are to be administered if there is chest pain. The patient should be placed in the Trendelenburg position, with vagal maneuvering where necessary (valsalva maneuver, massage in the carotid pulse region). The dental team should be prepared for basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation and initiation of the emergency procedure for evacuation to a hospital centre, if necessary. |
1416_31 | See also
Allergic acute coronary syndrome (Kounis syndrome)
References
External links
Medical emergencies
Ischemic heart diseases
Syndromes affecting the heart |
1417_0 | Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (stylized onscreen as Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI) is a 1986 American slasher film written and directed by Tom McLoughlin, and starring Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, and C.J. Graham. It is the sixth installment in the Friday the 13th franchise and the last one to feature Tommy Jarvis (Mathews) as the protagonist. Continuing on from the events of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, the plot follows Tommy after he accidentally resurrects mass murderer Jason Voorhees (Graham) while attempting to destroy his body to ensure he will not return. While Jason returns to Crystal Lake for another killing spree, Tommy must overcome his fear of the masked killer that has haunted him for years, and find a way to stop him once and for all. |
1417_1 | The original storyline had Tommy Jarvis become the series' new antagonist, but after the poor fan reception of A New Beginning, the producers instead brought Jason Voorhees back. In resurrecting Jason, McLoughlin made him an explicitly supernatural force for the first time in the series. This version of Jason, an undead and more powerful superhuman, would become the standard depiction for the rest of the series. The film also introduced metahumor, gothic horror, and action film elements, including shootouts and car chases, into the series. |
1417_2 | Jason Lives was the first in the series to receive some positive reception from critics since the original. In the years since its release, its self-referential humor and numerous instances of breaking the fourth wall have been praised for prefiguring Kevin Williamson's Scream series. Jason Lives is considered a fan favorite of the series, in addition to receiving positive notice from horror film historians. It grossed $19.4 million at the U.S. box office on a budget of $3 million. The film was followed by Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood in 1988. |
1417_3 | Plot |
1417_4 | Some time after the events at Pinehurst Halfway House, Tommy Jarvis is released from the mental institution, despite still having hallucinations of the mass murderer Jason Voorhees—whom he killed years ago. He returns to Crystal Lake, now renamed Forest Green, to confront his fears, alongside his friend Allen Hawes. The pair visit Jason's grave during a thunderstorm, hoping to cremate the killer's body and finally end Tommy's nightmares. After digging up Jason's corpse, Tommy experiences flashbacks of his last encounter with Jason and furiously impales his body with a metal fence post, just as two lightning bolts strike the post, causing Jason to come back to life as an immortal revenant. Jason proceeds to kill Hawes and don his hockey mask, which Tommy brought with him. Tommy flees to the sheriff's office to warn the police of Jason's return, only to be arrested and jailed. His warning of Jason's return goes unheeded by Sheriff Mike Garris, who is aware of Tommy's |
1417_5 | institutionalization and thinks he is hallucinating Jason's return. On the road, camp counselors Darren Robinson and Lizabeth Mott get lost looking for the Camp Forest Green and are stopped by Jason, who murders them both. |
1417_6 | The following morning, Garris' daughter Megan and her friends Sissy Baker, Cort Andrews, and Paula Mott arrive at the police station to report Darren and Lizabeth missing. Tommy warns them about Jason, but as he is now considered an urban legend, they ignore the warnings, though Megan grows attracted to him. In the woods, Jason happens upon a corporate paintball game; he kills all five members (three via decapitation, the fourth via dismemberment and crushed the 5th's face into a tree). Then he steals a machete from them, in the process discovering that he now possesses superhuman strength as a result of his resurrection. |
1417_7 | At Camp Forest Green, children arrive, and the teens do their best to run the camp without Darren and Lizabeth. Meanwhile, Garris decides to escort Tommy out of his jurisdiction due to his influence on Megan. On the way, Tommy tries to make a run for Jason's grave but finds that the caretaker had covered it up to deny responsibility for it being dug up, and Hawes' body is buried in its place. Tommy is then handcuffed and escorted out of town by Garris, who warns him to never return. That night, Jason murders the caretaker and a nearby couple who witness the murder. Meanwhile, Cort goes out to have sex with a girl named Nicola Parsley, but Jason kills them both. The sheriff's men find the victims' bodies and Garris immediately implicates Tommy in the murders, believing he has gone insane imagining Jason. |
1417_8 | Tommy contacts Megan and convinces her to help him lure Jason back to Crystal Lake. Meanwhile, Jason makes his way to the camp and kills both Sissy and Paula, but refrains from harming the children. Meanwhile, Tommy and Megan are pulled over by Garris. Despite Megan's alibi that she was with Tommy, he does not believe him to be innocent and arrests him, and then goes to the camp to investigate. As Tommy and Megan develop a ruse to trick the watching deputy and escape, Jason kills Garris and two other deputies when they arrive at the camp. |
1417_9 | Jason is about to kill Megan when Tommy calls to him from the lake; apparently remembering his killer, Jason goes after Tommy instead. Tommy is attacked in a boat in the middle of the lake and ties a boulder around Jason's neck to trap him. Jason fights back, holding Tommy underwater long enough to seemingly drown him. Megan rushes out to save him but is nearly killed when Jason grabs her leg; she turns the boat's activated motor around onto Jason's neck, and he releases her. She takes Tommy back to shore and uses CPR to revive him. Tommy says that it is finally over and that Jason is home. Under the water, Jason is shown to be still alive, albeit anchored to the bottom of the lake, waiting for another opportunity to return.
Cast |
1417_10 | C.J. Graham as Jason Voorhees
Thom Mathews as Tommy Jarvis
Jennifer Cooke as Megan Garris
David Kagen as Sheriff Mike Garris
Kerry Noonan as Paula Mott
Renée Jones as Elizabeth "Sissy" Baker
Tom Fridley as Carter "Cort" Andrews
Darcy DeMoss as Nicola "Nikki" Parsley
Nancy McLoughlin as Lizbeth Mott
Tony Goldwyn as Darren Robinson
Alan Blumenfeld as Larry
Matthew Faison as Stan
Ann Ryerson as Katie
Ron Palillo as Allen Hawes
Vincent Guastaferro as Deputy Rick Cologne
Michael Swan as Officer Pappas
Courtney Vickery as Nancy
Whitney Rydbeck as Roy
Bob Larkin as Martin
Wallace Merck as Burt
Roger Rose as Steven Halavex
Cynthia Kania as Annette Edwards
Michael Nomad as Officer Thornton
Justin Nowell as Billy
Tommy Nowell as Tyen
Dan Bradley as Jason Voorhees (uncredited)
Production |
1417_11 | Pre-production and writing
Although the previous film in the series, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, had been a financial success, it had disappointed the series' fans and received some of the worst reviews of any film in the series. In order to prevent further alienating the fans (and thus potentially endangering the series), the producers decided to take the series in a new direction, moving it away from what producer Frank Mancuso Jr. called the "coarse" nature of A New Beginning.
To this end, Mancuso hired Tom McLoughlin, who had directed the successful horror film One Dark Night but was also known around Hollywood for shopping around various comedy scripts he had written, a dichotomy that appealed to Mancuso. McLoughlin was given free rein on how he would present the story, with the only condition being that he bring back Jason and make him the film's villain. |
1417_12 | McLoughlin decided to take the film in the direction of an old Universal Monsters movie, specifically the 1931 version of Frankenstein, which portrayed the monster as a lumbering killer brought to life by electricity. McLoughlin also drew from vampire lore in order to give Jason a weakness, namely being returned to his "home soil"; to achieve this, McLoughlin disregarded the idea presented in Part 2 that Jason had survived his drowning, instead presenting the idea that Jason has always been some sort of supernatural force. He also decided to retcon the ending of the fifth film, where Tommy Jarvis was a serial killer. In fact, Pam's truck from the fifth film can be seen indicating she is alive. In the "Tommy Tapes" for Friday the 13th: The Game (2017) written by Adam Green, it's explained that the ending of the fifth film was Tommy's dream. |
1417_13 | McLoughlin further decided to expand the series' thematic scope, incorporating action film elements and postmodern metahumor; when Jason is first encountered in the woods near Crystal Lake, the character Lizbeth comments that she and Darren should flee because she knows about proper conduct to survive a horror film. McLoughlin would further satirize the series itself, as Martin the gravedigger comments on Jason's exhumation, "Why'd they have to go and dig up Jason?" before breaking the fourth wall and addressing the camera with the observation, "Some folks sure got a strange idea of entertainment." In addition to Frankenstein, McLoughlin also cited as inspiration his love of Gothic horror, particularly the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and his Catholic upbringing; Jason Lives features the series' only explicit references to God, and during the climax a praying girl is spared by Jason (a similar scene, in which the same girl prays for Tommy while Megan performs CPR, then mouths "Thank you" |
1417_14 | while looking skyward was deleted from the final cut of the movie, apparently against McLoughlin's wishes; he recalled in the 2009 DVD's director's commentary, "Somehow it didn't stay in... probably too much sentiment"). |
1417_15 | Casting
The decision to retcon the events of Part V resulted in many members of that film's cast—whose characters had survived—having their contracts to return for a sequel terminated. At one point in time when Jason Lives was being considered as a direct sequel to A New Beginning rather than to The Final Chapter, the surviving characters Pam and Reggie from A New Beginning were to have died in the film's opening moments.
Although Mancuso retained control over the film's casting, he deferred to McLoughlin's judgment; the only caveat was that the final girl had to be a "very attractive blonde". To fulfill this requirement, McLoughlin chose Jennifer Cooke, based on her performance in the television series V. The role of Hawes, Tommy's would-be sidekick who dies within the first five minutes of the movie, was given to another television veteran, Ron Palillo, famous for the role of Horshack on Welcome Back, Kotter. |
1417_16 | John Shepherd was asked to reprise his role as Tommy Jarvis from the previous film. Shepherd, an evangelical Christian who had reservations about returning to the series based on the atmosphere surrounding A New Beginning, was attracted to Jason Lives based on the scene in which a praying girl is spared by Jason. He ultimately decided to film Caught and shortly thereafter retired from acting to go to seminary. Thom Matthews, who would take over the mantel of Tommy Jarvis, was chosen for his work in the horror comedy Return of the Living Dead, although McLoughlin himself was unaware of Matthews' horror credentials until after shooting began. Other cast members were actors who McLoughlin had directed before (such as David Kagen, who was also an acting teacher for female lead Jennifer Cooke) and McLoughlin's own family—Jason's first female victim in the film, Lizbeth, was played by McLoughlin's wife, Nancy. In keeping with the series' tradition, the role of Jason was given to a stuntman, |
1417_17 | Dan Bradley. Bradley, however, was replaced shortly thereafter by C. J. Graham. Bradley's involvement during the paintball scene is kept. |
1417_18 | Filming
After the first day of filming, Mancuso decided that he disliked Bradley's appearance onscreen as Jason. Although the scenes that Bradley filmed—in which Jason kills the paintball playing executives—were kept in the completed picture, the rest of Jason's scenes were performed by C. J. Graham, an area restaurant manager and former soldier. As part of a stage show put on at the restaurant, a magician would hypnotize audience members and place them in a scenario during which they encountered Jason Voorhees; Graham, who stood 6'3 and weighed 250 lbs, was asked to play Jason for the scenario. Jason Lives special effects coordinator, Martin Becker, was in the audience for one such show, and recommended Graham to Mancuso and McLoughlin. Both men were impressed with Graham's presence, and he was hired to film the remainder of Jason's scenes. |
1417_19 | Jason Lives is the only film in the franchise to contain no nudity; the characters in the film's sole sex scene are both fully clothed, a conscious move on McLoughlin's part to distance the Friday the 13th films from their perception as morality tales in which premarital sex is punished by death. McLoughlin was pressured by the film's producers to have Darcy Demoss remove her shirt during the RV sex scene, but he only suggested the idea to Demoss, who refused.
Jason Lives was filmed in Covington, Georgia, an area close to Atlanta. The scenes involving the police department and town were filmed in Covington, while the camp scenes were filmed at Camp Daniel Morgan outside the city limits of Covington. In the film, Camp Crystal Lake has been renamed Lake Forest Green. Surrounding Camp Daniel Morgan are Smokey the Bear signs asking everyone to "Keep the Forests Green". |
1417_20 | Some of the climactic moments in the lake were actually filmed in the swimming pool of McLoughlin's father. McLoughlin ruined the pool's filter in the process (it was jammed by gore churned into the water when Jason is hit with the boat propeller). |
1417_21 | Post-production
McLoughlin's attempt to deliver a "different" kind of Friday the 13th film were met with skepticism from the producers. In contrast to the series' other entries, which had to be edited for violence in order to avoid an "X" rating, the film's producers requested that McLoughlin add more gore, violence, and murders to the film. The original cut of the film contained 13 killings as an in-joke; in order to appease the studio, McLoughlin had to add an additional three killings, bringing the total up to 16. These were the killings of Martin the gravedigger, and the recently engaged couple on a nighttime picnic. McLoughlin later said he felt the shot in which the picnicking man realizes that he's been spotted by Jason to be the film's scariest moment. |
1417_22 | Additionally, McLoughlin was made to extend Sissy's death, adding the shots of Jason dragging her to the ground and twisting her head off; as originally filmed, Sissy was simply pulled out of the cabin window, and wasn't seen again until Megan finds her head in the squad car. |
1417_23 | McLoughlin also found himself in contention with the producers over how the film should end. In the original script, the movie was supposed to have concluded in the graveyard, with Martin the gravedigger meeting Jason's father, Elias—a heretofore unseen character in the series—with the implication that Elias knows Jason has been resurrected and has come looking for him. The studio balked at the scene, as they did not want the responsibility of having to introduce Elias' backstory in the next installment. Additionally, the added murder of Martin made the scene a continuity error. This ending would have tied up a continuity error from A New Beginning, when it is mentioned that Jason was cremated. A deleted scene from Jason Lives had Tommy asking Sheriff Garris why Jason wasn't cremated, as had been planned, at which point Garris informs him that someone paid the city to bury Jason; Elias' handing Martin a wad of money would have indicated that he was the man who paid for Jason's burial. |
1417_24 | The scene was later storyboarded for inclusion on the film's "Deluxe Edition" DVD release, with Bob Larkin reprising his role as Martin to provide voiceover. Elias, like Jason, was scripted to be completely silent. |
1417_25 | McLoughlin ultimately shot three endings, two of which were not included on the film's DVD release. In one ending, Jason's mask floats to the surface of Crystal Lake, having become detached during his struggle with Megan. In another, Deputy Cologne tries to reach the jail cell keys after having been locked in by Tommy and Megan; the door to the police station opens and the film abruptly ends, indicating that Jason managed to get free. The producers disliked both of these endings, as each one left Jason's survival ambiguous, and wanted it explicitly shown onscreen that he was still capable of returning for a sequel. As a result, McLoughlin shot the film's used ending, showing a closeup of Jason's open, twitching eye.
Music |
1417_26 | The film's music was composed by Harry Manfredini, who composed the scores to all of the series' previous installments. In addition to the original score, the soundtrack also featured:
"He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" by Alice Cooper, from his album Constrictor
"I'm No Animal" by Felony, from their album Vigilante
"Teenage Frankenstein" by Alice Cooper, from his album Constrictor
"Hard Rock Summer" by Alice Cooper, from the box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper
"He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" had an accompanying music video, combining clips from the film with new footage featuring Cooper.
On January 13, 2012, La-La Land Records released a limited edition 6-CD boxset containing Manfredini's scores from the first six Friday the 13th films. It sold out in less than 24 hours.
Reception |
1417_27 | Box office
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives opened on August 1, 1986, in 1,610 theaters and grossed $6.7 million in its opening weekend, ranking number two at the US box office. Ultimately, it would go on to gross a total of $19.4 million, ranking at number 46 on the list of the year's top earners.
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives holds an approval rating of 46% based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 4.90/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives indeed brings back ol' Voorhees, along with a sense of serviceable braindead fun." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 30 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. |
1417_28 | Variety described the film as predictable but "reasonably slick". Caryn James of The New York Times called it "a gory waste of time", citing numerous logic problems and stating that McLoughlin's injecting humor into the series, while successful, was not enough to liven up the predictability of the story. Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune similarly judged that while the film's self-referential humor was good enough to make it the best film in the series, it was not enough to take away from the story being essentially the same as in the previous five installments. He gave it 1 1/2 stars. |
1417_29 | In a 2012 retrospective review, Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress wrote that it "may not be exactly a good movie in the strict sense, but it's easily the best in the series", noting that he had seen all ten installments which had been released at the time. David Nusair said the film has "probably the most effective pre-credits sequence in the entire franchise ... just the sort of appreciatively ludicrous interlude that's generally been sorely missing from this pervasively dull series". However, he felt the bulk of the film, while an improvement over the previous two installments, suffered from tedious pacing and a lack of gore. He gave it two out of four stars, the same rating he gave to six out of the series' ten installments.
Other media |
1417_30 | Novelization
A novelization of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was written by Simon Hawke in 1986; notably, the novelization features an appearance by a Mr. Voorhees, Jason's father who was originally meant to appear in the film but was cut. The book also includes various flashbacks to Jason's childhood and the backstories of characters such as Tommy and Sheriff Garris are also expanded.
References
External links
Film page at the Camp Crystal Lake web site
Film page at Fridaythe13thfilms.com
Friday Part 6
1986 films
1986 horror films
American films
American sequel films
American slasher films
1980s English-language films
Films directed by Tom McLoughlin
Films scored by Harry Manfredini
Films set in 1990
Films set in New Jersey
Films shot in Georgia (U.S. state)
Jason Lives
Paramount Pictures films
Resurrection in film
Films about summer camps
Supernatural slasher films
Films with screenplays by Tom McLoughlin |
1418_0 | Albert Abraham Michelson FFRS HFRSE (surname pronunciation anglicized as "Michael-son", December 19, 1852 – May 9, 1931) was a German-born American physicist known for his work on measuring the speed of light and especially for the Michelson–Morley experiment. In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, becoming the first American to win the Nobel Prize in a science. He was the founder and the first head of the physics departments of Case School of Applied Science (now Case Western Reserve University) and the University of Chicago. |
1418_1 | Life
Michelson was born in Strelno, Posen, Kingdom of Prussia (modern-day Strzelno, Poland), to Jewish parents, the son of Samuel Michelson and his wife, Rozalia Przyłubska. He moved to the US with his parents in 1855, at the age of two. He grew up in the mining towns of Murphy's Camp, California and Virginia City, Nevada, where his father was a merchant. His family was non-religious, and Michelson himself was a lifelong agnostic. He spent his high school years in San Francisco in the home of his aunt, Henriette Levy (née Michelson), who was the mother of author Harriet Lane Levy. |
1418_2 | President Ulysses S. Grant awarded Michelson a special appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1869. During his four years as a midshipman at the Academy, Michelson excelled in optics, heat, climatology and technical drawing. After graduating in 1873 and two years at sea, he returned to the Naval Academy in 1875 to become an instructor in physics and chemistry until 1879. In 1879, he was posted to the Nautical Almanac Office, Washington (part of the United States Naval Observatory), to work with Simon Newcomb. In the following year he obtained leave of absence to continue his studies in Europe. He visited the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, and the Collège de France and École Polytechnique in Paris. |
1418_3 | Michelson was fascinated with the sciences, and the problem of measuring the speed of light in particular. While at Annapolis, he conducted his first experiments on the speed of light, as part of a class demonstration in 1877. His Annapolis experiment was refined, and in 1879, he measured the speed of light in air to be 299,864 ± 51 kilometres per second, and estimated the speed of light in a vacuum as 299,940 km/s, or 186,380 mi/s. After two years of studies in Europe, he resigned from the Navy in 1881. In 1883 he accepted a position as professor of physics at the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio and concentrated on developing an improved interferometer. In 1887 he and Edward Morley carried out the famous Michelson–Morley experiment which failed to detect evidence of the existence of the luminiferous ether. He later moved on to use astronomical interferometers in the measurement of stellar diameters and in measuring the separations of binary stars. |
1418_4 | In 1889 Michelson became a professor at Clark University at Worcester, Massachusetts and in 1892 was appointed professor and the first head of the department of physics at the newly organized University of Chicago. In 1902, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.
In 1907, Michelson had the honor of being the first American to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid". He also won the Copley Medal in 1907, the Henry Draper Medal in 1916 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1923. A crater on the Moon is named after him. |
1418_5 | Michelson died in Pasadena, California at the age of 78. The University of Chicago Residence Halls remembered Michelson and his achievements by dedicating 'Michelson House' in his honor. Case Western Reserve has dedicated a Michelson House to him, and Michelson Hall (an academic building of science classrooms, laboratories and offices) at the United States Naval Academy also bears his name. Michelson Laboratory at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in Ridgecrest, California is named for him. There is a display in the publicly accessible area of the Lab which includes facsimiles of Michelson's Nobel Prize medal, the prize document, and examples of his diffraction gratings. In 2017, a newly renovated physics research center at the University of Chicago was renamed in honor of Michelson as well. |
1418_6 | Numerous awards, lectures, and honors have been created in Albert A. Michelson's name. Some of the current awards and lectures named for Michelson include the following: the Bomem-Michelson Award and Lecture annually presented until 2017 by the Coblentz Society; the Michelson–Morley Award and Lecture, along with the Michelson Lecture Series, and the Michelson Postdoctoral Prize Lectureship, all of which are given annually by Case Western Reserve University; the A.A. Michelson Award presented every year by the Computer Measurement Group; the Albert A. Michelson Award given by the Navy League of the United States; and the Michelson Memorial Lecture Series presented annually by the Division of Mathematics and Science at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Family
In 1877 Michelson married Margaret Hemingway, daughter of a wealthy New York stockbroker and lawyer and the niece of his commander William T. Sampson. They had two sons and a daughter. |
1418_7 | In 1899, he married Edna Stanton. They raised three daughters.
Speed of light
Early measurements
Michelson was fascinated by light all his life. Once asked why he studied light, he said, ‘’because it’s so much fun.’’
As early as 1869, while serving as an officer in the United States Navy, Michelson started planning a repeat of the rotating-mirror method of Léon Foucault for measuring the speed of light, using improved optics and a longer baseline. He conducted some preliminary measurements using largely improvised equipment in 1878, about the same time that his work came to the attention of Simon Newcomb, director of the Nautical Almanac Office who was already advanced in planning his own study. |
1418_8 | Michelson's formal experiments took place in June and July 1879. He constructed a frame building along the north sea wall of the Naval Academy to house the machinery. Michelson published his result of 299,910 ± 50 km/s in 1879 before joining Newcomb in Washington DC to assist with his measurements there. Thus began a long professional collaboration and friendship between the two.
Simon Newcomb, with his more adequately funded project, obtained a value of 299,860 ± 30 km/s, just at the extreme edge of consistency with Michelson's. Michelson continued to "refine" his method and in 1883 published a measurement of 299,853 ± 60 km/s, rather closer to that of his mentor. |
1418_9 | Mount Wilson and Lookout Mountain
In 1906, a novel electrical method was used by E. B. Rosa and the National Bureau of Standards to obtain a value for the speed of light of 299,781 ± 10 km/s. Though this result has subsequently been shown to be severely biased by the poor electrical standards in use at the time, it seems to have set a fashion for rather lower measured values.
From 1920, Michelson started planning a definitive measurement from the Mount Wilson Observatory, using a baseline to Lookout Mountain, a prominent bump on the south ridge of Mount San Antonio ("Old Baldy"), some 22 miles distant.
In 1922, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey began two years of painstaking measurement of the baseline using the recently available invar tapes. With the baseline length established in 1924, measurements were carried out over the next two years to obtain the published value of 299,796 ± 4 km/s. |
1418_10 | Famous as the measurement is, it was beset by problems, not least of which was the haze created by the smoke from forest fires which blurred the mirror image. It is also probable that the intensively detailed work of the geodetic survey, with an estimated error of less than one part in 1 million, was compromised by a shift in the baseline arising from the Santa Barbara earthquake of June 29, 1925, which was an estimated magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale.
The now-famous Michelson–Morley experiment also influenced the affirmation attempts of peer Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity and special relativity, using similar optical instrumentation. These instruments and related collaborations included the participation of fellow physicists Dayton Miller, Hendrik Lorentz, and Robert Shankland. |
1418_11 | Michelson, Pease, and Pearson
The period after 1927 marked the advent of new measurements of the speed of light using novel electro-optic devices, all substantially lower than Michelson's 1926 value. |
1418_12 | Michelson sought another measurement, but this time in an evacuated tube to avoid difficulties in interpreting the image owing to atmospheric effects. In 1929, he began a collaboration with Francis G. Pease and Fred Pearson to perform a measurement in a 1.6 km tube 3 feet in diameter at the Irvine Ranch near Santa Ana, California. In multiple reflections the light path was increased to 5 miles. For the first time in history the speed of light was measured in an almost perfect vacuum of 0.5 mm of mercury. Michelson died with only 36 of the 233 measurement series completed and the experiment was subsequently beset by geological instability and condensation problems before the result of 299,774 ± 11 km/s, consistent with the prevailing electro-optic values, was published posthumously in 1935. |
1418_13 | Application of basic statistical principles in Michelson’s study of speed of light |
1418_14 | During June and early July 1879, Michelson refined experimental arrangements from those developed by Hippolyte Fizeau and Léon Foucault. The experimental setup was as follows: Light generated from a source is directed towards a rotating mirror through a slit on a fixed plate; the rotating mirror reflects the incoming light and at a certain angle, towards the direction where another fixed flat mirror is placed whose surface is perpendicular to the incoming ray of light; the rotating mirror should have rotated by an angle α by the time the ray of light travels back and is reflected again towards the fixed plate (the distance between the fixed mirror and the rotating one is recorded as D); a displacement from the slit is detected on the plate which measures d; the distance from the rotating mirror to the fixed plate is designated as the radius r while the number of revolutions per second of the mirror is recorded as ω. In this way, tan(2α) = d/r; Δt = (α/2)/ω; speed of light can be |
1418_15 | derived as c = 2D/Δt. |
1418_16 | While at plain sight, four measured quantities are involved: distance D, radius r, displacement d and rotating mirror revolution per second ω, which seems simple; yet based on the limitation of the measurement technology at that time, great efforts were made by Michelson to reduce systematic errors and apply subsequent corrections. For instance, he adopted a steel measuring tape with a said length of 100 feet and he intended to measure tens of times across the distance; still, he measured its length against a copy of the official standard yard to find out it as 100.006 feet, thus eliminating a systematic error, albeit small. |
1418_17 | Aside from the efforts to reduce as much as possible the systematic errors, repeated measurements were performed at multiple levels to obtain more accurate results. As R.J.MacKay and R.W.Oldford remarked in their article, ‘It is clear that Michelson appreciated the power of averaging to reduce variability in measurement’, it is clear that Michelson had in mind the property that averages vary less which should be formally described as: the standard deviation of the average of n independent random variables is less than that of a single random variable by a factor of the square root of n. To realize that, he also strived to have each measurement not influencing each other, thus being mutually independent random variables. |
1418_18 | A statistical model for repeated measurements with the assumption of independence or identical distributions is unrealistic. In the case of light speed study, each measurement is approached as the sum of quantity of interest and measurement error. In the absence of systematic error, the measurement error of speed of light can be modeled by a random sample from a distribution with unknown expectation and finite variance; thus, the speed of light is represented by the expectation of the model distribution and the ultimate goal is to estimate the expectation of the model distribution on the acquired dataset. The law of large numbers suggests to estimate the expectation by the sample mean.
Michelson–Morley interferometry experiment |
1418_19 | In 1887 he collaborated with colleague Edward Williams Morley of Western Reserve University, now part of Case Western Reserve University, in the Michelson–Morley experiment. Their experiment for the expected motion of the Earth relative to the aether, the hypothetical medium in which light was supposed to travel, resulted in a null result. Surprised, Michelson repeated the experiment with greater and greater precision over the next years, but continued to find no ability to measure the aether. The Michelson–Morley results were immensely influential in the physics community, leading Hendrik Lorentz to devise his now-famous Lorentz contraction equations as a means of explaining the null result. |
1418_20 | There has been some historical controversy over whether Albert Einstein was aware of the Michelson–Morley results when he developed his theory of special relativity, which pronounced the aether to be "superfluous." In a later interview, Einstein said of the Michelson–Morley experiment, "I was not conscious it had influenced me directly... I guess I just took it for granted that it was true." Regardless of Einstein's specific knowledge, the experiment is today considered the canonical experiment in regards to showing the lack of a detectable aether.
The precision of their equipment allowed Michelson and Morley to be the first to get precise values for the fine structure in the atomic spectral lines for which in 1916 Arnold Sommerfeld gave a theoretical explanation, introducing the fine-structure constant.
Astronomical interferometry
Optical |
1418_21 | In 1920 Michelson and Francis G. Pease made the first measurement of the diameter of a star other than the Sun. Michelson had invented astronomical interferometry and built such an instrument at the Mount Wilson Observatory which was used to measure the diameter of the red giant Betelgeuse. A periscope arrangement was used to direct light from two subpupils, separated by up to 20 feet (6m), into the main pupil of the 100 inch (2.5m) Hooker Telescope, producing interference fringes observed through the eyepiece. The measurement of stellar diameters and the separations of binary stars took up an increasing amount of Michelson's life after this. |
1418_22 | Beginning in the 1970s, astronomical interferometry was revived, with the configurations using two (or more) separate apertures (with diameters small compared to their separation) being often referred to as "Michelson Stellar Interferometry." This was to distinguish it from speckle interferometry, but should not be confused with the Michelson interferometer which is one common laboratory interferometer configuration of which the interferometer used in the Michelson–Morley experiment was an instance. Michelson's concept of interfering light from two relatively small apertures separated by a substantial distance (but with that distance, or baseline, now often as long as hundreds of meters) is employed at modern operational observatories such as VLTI, CHARA and the U.S. Navy's NPOI. |
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