Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates/Tartan Ribbon.jpg
Response to my inquiry to the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation below. ~ trialsanderrors 20:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
University of Edinburgh School of Physics ----- Image of Maxwell's tartan ribbon ----------- Thank you for your enquiry about the source of the Wikipedia image of the tartan ribbon in the shape of a rosette. That version, with the tails of the rosette pointing upwards, is most closely matched by the photograph in Marischal College, Aberdeen. I have found out from Dr John S Reid, Aberdeen University, that - so far as he is aware - the Wikipedia one is not derived from the Marischal College one. The one we prefer to show is the one in the 1961 Scientific American. It is in a centenary commemorative paper by Ralph Evans, who had the cooperation of Kodak Labs in doing a re-run of the Maxwell method using copies of Maxwell's actual lantern slides. His version has the ribbon tails pointing downwards. More importantly, it shows how they could not get the three images to overlap precisely, and parts of the image have the colours separated out, rainbow-like. We do not know the orientation that Maxwell chose for the Royal Institution discourse in March 1861. The Wikipedia version - no rainbowing - is like a digitally enhanced copy of the Evans/Kodak one, but the quality could be improved. By coincidence, a Professor Curtin in Maryland, USA, hopes to put a representation of Maxwell's technique using copies of Maxwell's lantern slides on to his website. We have sent him (on a CD) copies of the set of lantern slides which we have at 14 India Street. He will have quite a lot of work to do on them to get suitably enhanced copies to do his web exercise: to get all three images exactly the same size and all background flaws removed. I shall keep you informed of his progress. He may be interested in making his result available via Wikipedia. I have NOT asked him about that possibility. If he is interested, I shall, of course, send him copies of our email messages; but that might well be some weeks from now. With best wishes. Richard C Dougal Dr R C Dougal; Trustee, James Clerk Maxwell Foundation;
