Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.9949
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Prism experiments for detecting the motion of the solar system
Date
1786
Creator
Robert Blain (British) , Physician
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing): 226mm
width (drawing): 183mm
width (drawing): 183mm
Subject
Description
Plate 1 figures 1-3 from the paper “A proposal for ascertaining by experiment whether the velocity of light be affected by the motion of the body from which it is emitted or reflected...”, by Robert Blain. Read to the Royal Society 5 April 1786 but not published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
Includes (figure 3) a proposed instrument composed of a circle of prism through which starlight is refracted: “By means of this instrument the nice question which has long been agitated, whether the solar system be in motion, or at rest, will be determined; together with the quantity and direction of this motion, if there be any.”
Inscribed in ink with the figure numbers. Not signed.
Includes (figure 3) a proposed instrument composed of a circle of prism through which starlight is refracted: “By means of this instrument the nice question which has long been agitated, whether the solar system be in motion, or at rest, will be determined; together with the quantity and direction of this motion, if there be any.”
Inscribed in ink with the figure numbers. Not signed.
Associated place