FRESNEL, AUGUSTIN. - THE ABERRATION OF LIGHT.

Lettre de M. Fresnel à M. Arago, sur l'influence du mouvement terrestre dans quelques phénomènes d'optique.

Paris, Crochard, 1818. No wrappers. In: "Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Par MM. Gay-Lussac et Arago.", tome 9, Cahier 1. Titlepage to vol. 9. Pp. 5-112 a. 1 folded engraved plate. (The entire issue offered). Fresnel's paper: pp. 57-66. Small stamps on verso of titlepage.

First printing of Fresnel's importent memoir on the aberration effect from a moving earth.

"In the same year in which the memoir on diffraction was submitted, Fresnel published an investigation of the influence of the earth's motion on light (the paper offered).....if we suppose the aether surrounding the earth to be at rest and unaffected by the earth's motion of the telescope, which we may suppose directed to the true place of the star, and the image of the star will therefore be displaced from the central spider-line at the focus by a distance equal to that which the earth describes while the light is travelling through the telescope. This agrees with what is actually observed."(Whittaker "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity" I, pp. 108-9).

Order-nr.: 44121