Copyright for E F Northrup's "Zero to Eighty"

This is a picture from page 98 of Zero To Eighty by Edwin Fitch Northrup, Scientific Publishers, Copyright 1937 not renewed. This coil gun or mass driver was constructed in the mid 1930s by Dr. Northrup's team, and was the beginning of a development program intended to lead to an electromagnetic space launcher. Dr. Northrup died in 1940, and the V2 led instead to the military development of rockets, followed later on by NASA developments for space launch. Had Dr. Northrup lived, a later development of electromagnetic launchers would probably be the preferred way to get into space, far more cheaply than rockets. Thus, this is an "alternatively historical" picture, the beginnings of what might have been.

To whom the copyright may concern: I spent a couple of fascinating hours Friday December 2 2011, in room LM-410 of the Madison Building of the Library of Congress. The 3 big rooms are filled with thousands of card cabinets and millions of copyright cards, from the 1800s through the early 1980s. Among other things, I researched the copyright of the book "Zero to Eighty", which Dr. Edwin Fitch Northrup copyrighted on May 12, 1937. I found the original (pink) copyright card, filled out in nice Spencerian handwriting by Mr. C.R. Johnson of The Scientific Publishing Publishing Company, 46 Park Place, Princeton N.J, in the books/authors cabinets running from 19xx through 1937.

The US copyright law of 1909, effective until 1977, applies here. For a registered copyright to remain in force, it must be renewed by the copyright holder during the 28th year - in this case, around 1965, see this [http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ22.pdf copyright office document] and [http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ23.pdf this one] .

There are no renewal cards - not surprising, Dr. Fitch died in 1940, leaving no heirs.

for more information see

• http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ22.pdf

• http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ23.pdf