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)[reply]

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;

Great, if we could get hold of a better scan! Then, you'd just overwrite the old one, and it will stay a featured picture without need for re-nominating. --Janke | Talk 09:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]