Travelling light

Instruments, Travel and Science: Itineraries of Precision from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century

Volumn , Issue , 2003, Pages 243-272

  Staley, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84905074147     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.4324/9780203219010     Document Type: Chapter

References (64)

1. C.J. Evans and D.J. Warner, 'Precision engineering and experimental physics: William A. Rogers, the first academic mechanician in the US', in S. Goldberg and R.H. Stuewer (eds) The Michelson Era in American Science: 1870-1930, New York: American Institute of Physics, 1988, pp. 2-12.
2. For biographies see D.M. Livingston, The Master of Light: A Biography of Albert A. Michelson, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973
3. B. Jaffe, Michelson and the Speed of Light, New York: Anchor, 1961.
4. A.A. Michelson, 'The relative motion of the earth and the luminiferous ether', American Journal of Science 22, 1881, 120-9, p. 121.
5. See A.A. Michelson, 'Report, conference on the Michelson-Morley experiment', Astrophysical Journal 68, no. 5, 1928, 342-5, p. 343. Michelson's comments have not been noticed by previous scholars.
6. On Fizeau as a source see L.S. Swenson, The Ethereal Ether: A History of the Michelson-Morley Aether-Drift Experiments, 1880-1930, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972, pp. 61-2.
7. On the sextant see Darwin H. Stapleton, 'The context of science: the community of industry and higher education in Cleveland in the 1880s', in Goldberg and Stuewer, The Michelson Era, pp. 13-22, p. 16. Others have described it as following from a study of Jamin's apparatus.
8. R.S. Shankland, 'Michelson-Morley experiment', American Journal of Physics 32, 1964, 16-35, pp. 18-19
9. Livingston, Master, p. 77.
10. See A.A. Michelson, 'Experimental determination of the velocity of light', Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 27, 1878, 71-7, on pp. 75-6
11. idem, 'Experimental determination of the velocity of light', U.S. Nautical Almanac Office Astronomical Papers 1, no. Part III, 1879, 115-45, on p. 116.
12. This was not a good sign for the lab.: the unusually large sum of 310,000 marks had just been spent on its foundations. See Paul Forman, John Heilbron and Spencer Weart, 'Physics circa 1900: personnel, funding and productivity of the academic establishments', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 5, 1973, 1-185, p. 111.
13. Michelson, 'Relative motion', p. 124.
14. Potier's insight was acknowledged in A.A. Michelson, 'Sur le mouvement relatif de la terre et de l'ether,' Comptes Rendus 94, 1882, 520-3.
15. H.A. Lorentz, 'De l'influence du mouvement de la terre sur les phé nomè nes lumineux', Archives Néerlandaises 21, 1886, 297ff.
16. Livingston, Master, pp. 87-8.
17. On Rogers see Evans and Warner, 'Precision engineering'
18. Edward W. Morley, 'Biographical memoir of William Augustus Rogers', Biographical Memoirs-National Academy of the Sciences 4, 1902, 187-9.
19. A.L. Norberg, 'Simon Newcomb's early astronomical career', Isis 69, 1978, 209-25, p. 218.
20. A.A. Michelson, 'Supplementary measures of the velocities of white and colored light in air, water, and carbon disulphide, made with the aid of the Bache Fund of the National Academy of Sciences', Astronomical Papers Prepared for the Use of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac 2, 1882, 231-58. For the corrections to the earlier result see pp. 243-4.
21. On Morley see H.R. Williams, Edward Williams Morley: His Influence on Science in America, Easton, Pa., 1957.
22. Michelson and Morley, 'Influence of motion', p. 380. In the case of the second experiment, they wrote that they sought a theoretical effect that was much too large to be masked by experimental errors, in the light of the oversights that had undermined the result of the earlier attempt.
23. Michelson and Morley, 'Relative motion', p. 335.
24. Michelson's next ether-drift paper was published ten years later, using a light path that extended up the side of the laboratory at the University of Chicago. A.A. Michelson, 'The relative motion of the earth and the ether', American Journal of Science 3, 1897, 475-8.
25. See E.G. Spittler, 'Morley, Edward Williams', in C.C. Gillispie (ed.) Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 9, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974, pp. 530-1.
26. A.A. Michelson and E.W. Morley, 'On a method of making the wave-length of sodium light the actual and practical standard of length', American Journal of Science 34, 1887, 427-30.
27. A.A. Michelson, 'A plea for light waves', Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 37, 1889, 1-14. George Hale first met Michelson on this occasion.
28. George E. Hale, 'Some of Michelson's researches', Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 43, 1931, 174-85, p. 176.
29. Michelson, 'Plea', pp. 75-8.
30. A.A. Michelson, 'Measurement by light-waves', American Journal of Science 39, 1890, 115-21.
31. A.A. Michelson, Light Waves and Their Uses, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902.
32. See Newcomb, 'Measures', pp. 111 and 204.
33. See note 19; also, William A. Rogers, 'On the present state of the question of standards of length', Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 15, 1880, 273-312
34. idem, 'Studies in metrology. First paper', Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 18, 1883, 287-398.
35. C.S. Peirce, 'Note on the progress of experiments for comparing a wave-length with a meter', Nature 20, 1879, 99, and American Journal of Physics 28, 1879, 51.
36. See Victor F. Lenzen, 'The contributions of Charles S. Peirce to metrology', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 109, 1965, 29-46.
37. Macé de Lepinay, 'Détermination de la valeur absolue de la longueur d'onde de la raie D2', Comptes Rendus 102, 1886, 1153-5, and Journal de physique thé orique et appliqué e 5, 1886, 411-16.
38. Louis Bell, 'On the absolute wave-length of light', American Journal of Physics 33, 1887, 167-82.
39. G.M. Bond (ed.) Standards of Length and their Practical Application, Hartford, Conn.: Pratt & Whitney, 1887, p. 67.
40. See C. Evans, Precision Engineering: An Evolutionary View, Bedford: Cranfield Press, 1989, p. 79.
41. See Michelson and Morley, 'On a method'.
42. See Michelson and Morley, 'Relative motion', p. 339.
43. A.A. Michelson, 'Comparison of the international metre with the wave-length of the light of cadmium', Astronomy and Astrophysics 12, 1893, 556-60, p. 560.
44. Michelson and Morley, 'On a method', p. 430.
45. See Livingston, Master, pp. 136-7.
46. On Warner & Swasey see E.J. Pershey, 'The early telescopes of Warner & Swasey', Sky and Telescope 67, 1984, 309-11, p. 311.
47. On Brashear see John A. Brashear, A Man Who Loved the Stars: The Autobiography of John A. Brashear, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
48. Bart Fried, 'The masterful techniques of John A. Brashear', Sky and Telescope 81, 1991, 432-8. Brashear was also responsible for the plates used in Rowland's diffraction gratings.
49. A.A. Michelson, 'Détermination de la valeur du mè tre en longueurs d'onde lumineuses', Travaux et Mémoires du Bureau International des poids et mesures 11, 1895.
50. See A.A. Michelson, 'Radiation in a magnetic field', Astrophysical Journal 6, 1897, 48-54.
51. See D. Weaire and S. O'Connor, 'Unfulfilled renown: Thomas Preston (1860-1900) and the anomalous Zeeman effect', Annals of Science 44, 1987, 617-44.
52. T. Preston, 'Radiation phenomena in the magnetic field', Nature 53, 1899, 224-9.
53. T. Preston, 'Radiation in a magnetic field', Nature 59, 1899, 485 (letter to the editor). He was responding to Michelson, Nature 59, 1899, 440.
54. Thomas Preston, 'The interferometer', Nature 59, 1899, 605 (letter to the editor).
55. For a summary of these debates which featured, among others, Jewell and Bell (of Johns Hopkins), Hartmann, Kayser and Fabry and Pérot, see H. Crew, 'Remarks on standard wave-lengths', Astrophysical Journal 20, 1904, 313-17
56. H. Kayser, 'New standards of optical wave-length', Philosophical Magazine 8, 1904, 568-71.
57. C. Fabry and A. Pérot, 'Mesure de petites épaisseures en valeur absolue', Comptes Rendus 123 (1896), 802-5
58. idem, 'Sur une nouvelle méthode de spectroscopie inté ferentielle', Comptes Rendus 126 (1898), 34-6. On Fabry and Pérot see the entries in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
59. See for example C. Fabry and A. Pérot, 'Measures of absolute wave-lengths in the solar spectrum and in the spectrum of iron', Astrophysical Journal 15, 1902, 73-96, 261-73;
60. L. Bell, 'On the discrepancy between grating and interference measurements', Astrophysical Journal 15, 1902, 157-71.
61. A.A. Michelson, 'The ruling of the diffraction grating', MS, no date (probably early 1915), Michelson Collection, X-8.
62. From similarities in design, Evans and Warner infer that Michelson may have drawn on the ruling engines of Rogers in designing his own (Evans and Warner, 'Precision engineering', p. 5). See A.A. Michelson, 'Report of progress in ruling diffraction gratings', American Physical Society 20, 1905, 389-91
63. idem, 'The ruling and performance of a ten-inch diffraction grating', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 54, 1915, 137-42.
64. See G.R. Harrison, 'The production of diffraction gratings: I. Development of the ruling art', Journal of the Optical Society of America 39, 1949, 413-26.