Wilhelm Eduard Weber
In 1856, Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Rudolf Kohlrausch performed an experiment with a Leyden jar and established the ratio of electric charge as measured statically to the same electric charge as measured electrodynamically. Maxwell used this ratio in Isaac Newton's equation for the speed of sound, as applied using the density and transverse elasticity of his sea of molecular vortices. He obtained a value which was very close to the speed of light, as recently measured directly by Hippolyte Fizeau. Maxwell then wrote