I guess in the end, when you say "He took two interesting, basically unrelated subjects and found an incidental link between the two." I think that is a neat and interesting approach, and you most certainly don't. In this, I think, we can agree to disagree. But sir, I too salute your tenacity, and respect your opinion. It has been a pleasure.
I agree this is not of particular importance. But like you, I am stubborn. Do a simple google search and plenty of connections between argand burners and the MM experment come right up, including this article (http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1987/2/1987_2_42.shtml) written by Loyd S. Swenson, Jr. author of The Ethereal Aether: A History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-Drift Experiments, 1880-1930. In it he says
"The light was provided by a standard Argand burner, widely used in lamps for vehicles and fashionable parlors as well as in spectroscopy."
and
"The light came as before from the bright flame of an ordinary Argand oil burner, passed through a small, narrow slit and rendered parallel by a lens."
That said, I read no mention of spermaceti, but they do speak of using yellow sodium light so perhaps you are correct and in this experment they used sodium in an argand burner. Regardless, the articles connection seems to me to be more about the standard candle, and the article about the changing nature of measurement and science, not a treatise on the exact nature of the MM experment. Personally I liked it quite a bit but that, of course, is subjective!
From http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-04/msg00765.html
"Although Michelson and Morley used sodium light for collimating the apparatus, the actual experiment was performed using white light from an argand burner. The colored fringes were much easier to visually monitor; on the other hand,the limited coherence length of white light meant that the path lengths needed to match within microns. Note in Fig. 4 the piece of glass "c" used to compensate for the difference in light paths."
It says they used and argand burner as the source of light, which would have almost surely used spermaceti. Regardless it also seems the connection is really about a standard candle in physics, such as the spermaceti candle and the type 1a supernova. I found the article quite clever and very interesting!
I agree this is not of particular importance. But like you, I am stubborn. Do a simple google search and plenty of connections between argand burners and the MM experment come right up, including this article (http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1987/2/1987_2_42.shtml) written by Loyd S. Swenson, Jr. author of The Ethereal Aether: A History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-Drift Experiments, 1880-1930. In it he says
"The light was provided by a standard Argand burner, widely used in lamps for vehicles and fashionable parlors as well as in spectroscopy."
and
"The light came as before from the bright flame of an ordinary Argand oil burner, passed through a small, narrow slit and rendered parallel by a lens."
That said, I read no mention of spermaceti, but they do speak of using yellow sodium light so perhaps you are correct and in this experment they used sodium in an argand burner. Regardless, the articles connection seems to me to be more about the standard candle, and the article about the changing nature of measurement and science, not a treatise on the exact nature of the MM experment. Personally I liked it quite a bit but that, of course, is subjective!
From http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-04/msg00765.html
"Although Michelson and Morley used
sodium light for collimating the apparatus, the actual experiment was performed using white light from an argand burner. The colored fringes were much easier to visually monitor; on the other hand,the limited coherence length of white light meant that the path
lengths needed to match within microns. Note in Fig. 4 the piece of glass "c" used to compensate for the difference in light paths."