Abstract
MR. M. E. J. GHEURY DE BRAY, 40 Westmount Road, Eltham Park, London, S.E.9, has published, in the form of a pamphlet entitled “La vitesse de la lumière”, a critical and documented discussion of the chief experiments made to determine this constant, from the pioneer work of Römer and of Bradley, down to the latest experiment devised by Michelson. The experiments are carefully analysed, and the accounts contain discussions of certain errors, obscurities, and irrelevancies which disfigure the presentation of the subject in many of the texts. The description of the observations of Römer and of Bradley is specially useful. The author presents a table which shows the results of some twenty-one experiments, beginning with that of Fizeau in 1849 and concluding with the recent work of Michelson. Of these experiments he decides, after critical consideration, that seven give trustworthy results. He divides these into two groups—experiments carried out on a short base line and those carried out on a long base line. The results are summarised as follows:
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Velocity of Light. Nature 129, 573 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129573a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129573a0