In the heavens we discover [by spectroscopy] by their light, and by their light alone stars so distant from each other that no material thing can have ever have passed from one to another and yet this light, which is to us the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds, tell us also that each of them is built of molecules of the same kind as those which we find on earth. A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule therefore throughout the universe bears impressed upon it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac.
James Clerk Maxwell in: Van Nostrand's Eclectic Engineering Magazine, Volume 9, D. Van Nostrand, 1873
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