On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether

Edition

Text: the validated transcription of English Wikisource (“On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether”, Index:On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether.djvu, all 13 pages at proofread level 4), checked word by word against the scan of the issue in the Internet Archive (sim_american-journal-of-science_1887-11_34_203, 400 ppi, pp. 333-345) with the OCR layer of that scan as a second reading: every difference between the two was settled on the scan. Where Wikisource differs from the print, the poster follows the print: “velociy” (p. 334), “discusssion” (p. 335) and “qui’l” (p. 334) are misprints of the journal, kept, as are “imcompressible” and “a highly probably determination”; “l’éther” (not “l’ether”); “fig. 5” and “fig. 4” (not “fig. 6” and “fig. 1”) on p. 337; “1·5 centimeter” (not “1.6”); “wave-lengths” (p. 339); “the light” (not “the-light”, p. 342); “out to” (not “out-to”); the aberration and the angle of the moving mirror are alpha, as printed, not the letter a; the subscript stroke of “d,” (p. 337) and of the second “T,” of p. 336 and the semicolon after “e,” (p. 339) are restored; in the notes, “iii, 457” and “III, xxii”, and the title of the note on Michelson’s paper of 1881 in lower case as printed. In the second note of p. 333 the f of “of” is broken and reads as “ot” in this copy; Wikisource’s “of” is kept. The title, the authors and the article number are in the header, the note on the Bache Fund, which is called from the authors’ names, is the byline; the signature line at the foot of p. 333 gives the kicker, the cover of the issue the publisher of the footer; running heads and page numbers are dropped. Words hyphenated at line ends are rejoined (“intermolecular”, p. 334); “four-thirds”, divided at a line end as “four-” and “thirds”, keeps its hyphen like “three-fourths” above it. The footnotes, marked with symbols on each page (*, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶), are numbered 1 to 8 and follow the text. Decimals keep the raised point of the journal. The mathematics is set with KaTeX from the scan (the comma that the print sets inside the denominator of the first fraction of p. 336 follows the fraction), the prime subscript of b, a, T and θ as a subscript stroke. The two tables of p. 340 are set in type across the page, their numbers checked one by one against the scan; the “16·” that heads the last column is set “16.”. Figures 1 to 6 and the four figures of the Supplement (all on p. 343) are the files of Wikimedia Commons listed in the license note, made from the scan of the American Institute of Physics, stored as 8-bit grayscale (their palettes are gray), every pixel value unchanged; figures that interrupt a paragraph in the journal (1 and 2, 4, 5, 6 and the page of the Supplement) come after that paragraph. The Supplement figures keep their own numbers 1 to 4, as printed.

Rights

Published in the United States in November 1887, before 1 January 1931: public domain in the United States. Albert A. Michelson died on 9 May 1931 (Wikidata Q127234) and Edward W. Morley on 24 February 1923 (Wikidata Q320889): their works are in the public domain in France since 1 January 2002 (70 years counted from 1 January 1932).

Figures from Wikimedia Commons, each marked {{PD-scan|PD-1923}} on its file page, source aip.org: “On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether - Fig 1 and 2.png”, “- Fig 3.png”, “- Fig 4.png”, “- Fig 5.png”, “- Fig 6.png” and “- Fig 1, 2, 3, 4 (suplement).png” (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Michelson-Morley_experiment). The Wikisource transcription is marked {{PD/US|1931}}, and its scan on Commons (File:On_the_Relative_Motion_of_the_Earth_and_the_Luminiferous_Ether.djvu) {{PD-scan|PD-1923}}. The Internet Archive scan, which the text was checked against, states no license; no image is taken from it.