Re:The Genius in My Basement (2011)
by kryptiskt on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @05:46PM
(#21880917)
Off-topic but I'll take the opportunity to paste my favorite Maxwell quote (from James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatsie on Electricity and Magnetism, 1873):
"In the present state of science the most universal standard of length which we could assume would be the wave length in vacuum of a particular kind of light, emitted by some widely diffused substance such as sodium, which has well-defined lines in its spectrum. Such a standard would be independent of any changes in the dimensions of the earth, and should be adopted by those who expect their writings to be more permanent than that body."
"In the present state of science the most universal standard of length which we could assume would be the wave length in vacuum of a particular kind of light, emitted by some widely diffused substance such as sodium, which has well-defined lines in its spectrum. Such a standard would be independent of any changes in the dimensions of the earth, and should be adopted by those who expect their writings to be more permanent than that body."