Abstract
THE amount of change a story can undergo through repeated copying is a commonplace of experimental psychology; and every scientific worker in the habit verifying orign refecences has met with examples where the actual statements of an early investigator differ subsecntially from the versions of them to be found in more recent writings. But it is not often that one meets so extreme a case as that given by Mr. Gheury de Bray in a letter to NATUnE of Sept. 17, and in an article in the present issue. Of eleven determinations of the velocity of light quoted in standard works, only one turned out to have been quoted correctly. Mr. de Bray's historical work should provide material for any one in need of examples for the precept ‘Verify your references’.
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News and Views. Nature 120, 594–597 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/120594b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/120594b0