ATD 57-80
Page 58
Michelson-Morley experiment
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. Wikipedia entry
Töpler influence machine A machine for producing electrical charges.
Page 60
Roswell Bounce
The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. Wikipedia entry
Page 61
"Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the MIchelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected."
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in Gravity's Rainbow (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
Page 63
O.D. Chandrasekhar
Perhaps a nod to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the Chandrasekhar Limit which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
