1] James Clerk Maxwell:
Reading The Demon in the Aether (The life of... by Martin Goldman).
Concerning A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field (1864), Goldman writes:
What Maxwell had done in his new paper he compared to being a bell-ringer:
In an ordinary belfry, each bell has one rope which comes down through a hole in the floor to the bellringer's room. But suppose that each rope, instead of acting on one bell, contributes to the motion of many pieces of machinery, and that the motion of each piece is determined not by the motion of one rope alone, but by that of several, and suppose, further that all this machinery is silent and utterly unknown to the men at the ropes, who can only
see as far as the holes in the floor above them.
[p.169] concerning optical instruments:
He dug up, revived and developed an old theorem of Roger Cotes to consider instruments as being 'black boxes'.
[p.196] concerning the aether and J.J Thompson's reaction:
Maxwell's electromagnetic field equations seemed to by-pass the aether, he might profess still to believe in an aether, but it was no longer necessary to him to explain light. His was a new and utterly disturbing sort of theory, in which he talked of waves, but did not care what was doing the waving. What Maxwell has done was introduce abstract, formal mathematical modelling by differential equations, as the basis of a physical understanding of the phenomena... It is not surprising that Thomson was perturbed by this.
I never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I understand it... and
that is why I cannot get the electromagnetic theory of light.
also to note:
David Hughes experiment [p.197] to detect electromagnetic radiation
Henry Cavendish
2] Antonin Artaud and Lewis Carroll:
The Walrus and the Carpenter (Annotated Alice p.236)
... But answer was there none
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.
///
Following Deleuze - Logique du sens [Thirteenth Series of the Schizophrenic and the Little Girl]
Artaud oeuvres:
p.1012+ Lettres de Rodez a Henri Parisot 20/22 September 1945 (concerning the earlier translations/adaptations including fragment of Jabberwocky)
p.913 Adaptations de Lewis Carroll:
Variations a propos d'un theme
L'Arve et L'Aume [Tentative anti-grammaticale contre Lewis Carroll]