Newton: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Rob Iliffe

Author:Rob Iliffe [Iliffe, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, Science & Math, History & Philosophy, Mathematics, Physics
Amazon: B003N2P412
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2007-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

Light and aether acted upon each other, he continued, aether refracting light, and light acting on aether to make heat. Light could also cause aether to vibrate, sending vibrations cascading through a larger body in the same way that the beating of a pair of drums could stimulate the air to vibrate. By analogy with the way that vibrating air gave rise to sound, the experience of various colours could be caused by vibrations set up in the capillamenta of the optic nerve. The strongest vibrations would cause the most intense colours, and Newton even proposed that light could be analysed according to the way that sound was ‘graduated’ into tones. Indeed, it was in this paper that Newton first publicly suggested (on the basis of lines drawn by a friend) that the spectrum be divided up into seven colours, again on analogy with the octave. Finally he attempted to explain how concentric bands appeared in thin plates, and also how diffraction occurred. The latter had caused a disagreement at the Royal Society meeting in spring 1675 where Hooke had raised the topic, Newton asserting that it was merely a form of refraction, and Hooke affirming that, if so, it was a novel sort. In the ‘Hypothesis’, however, Newton now pointed out that he had read that, long before Hooke, Grimaldi had performed some diffraction experiments.

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