The Newton Missing Experiment (original) (raw)
Revista Mexicana De Fisica E, 2006
Some characteristics of Newton's philosophical method relevant to his works First Paper on Light and Colours (1672) y Opticks (1704) are discussed. It is shown from his prism experiments using different materials described in those works that it is possible that he may have carried out experiments with air prisms in water. This would have questioned the inductive conclusion that red rays are always less refracted than blue ones. Finally, and with a pedagogical intention, an experiment is reported to illustrate the result obtained depending on the material of the prism and of the medium.
Experiment and mathematics in Newton's theory of color
Physics Today, 1984
On 18 January 1672 Isaac Newton wrote Henry Oldenburg, Secretary of the Royal Society, that he would send him a paper that he modestly described as “being in my Judgment the oddest if not the most considerable detection wch hath hitherto beene made in the operations of Nature.” Newton was not referring to his theory of gravitation—that was still more than a dozen years away—but rather to his new theory of the nature of white light and color. He had discovered that rays of different color have different degrees of refrangibility—or, as we would put it, that the index of refraction varies with wavelength—and that white light and, in particular, sunlight consist of a mixture of innumerable colors. Less than three weeks later, as Newton promised, he sent to the Royal Society his famous paper, “A New theory about light and colors,” which was published at once in the Philosophical Transactions. In the “New theory” he boldly proclaims: “A naturalist would scearce expect to see ye science o...
The optical papers of Isaac Newton
1984
List of plates Preface Editorial note Abbreviated references Introduction Synopsis of the Lectiones opticae and Optica and their major differences Concordance of article numbers Lectiones opitcae: Optica: Part I. The Refractions of Light Rays: 1. The refrangibility of rays differs 2. The measure of refractions 3. The refractions of planes 4. The refractions of curved surfaces Part II. The Origin of Colors: 5. The doctrine of colors is set forth and proved by prismatic experiments 6. Various phenomena of colors Bibliography Index.
Newton's Scaffolding: the instrumental roles of his optical hypotheses
2018
Early modern experimental philosophers often appear to commit to, and utilise, corpuscular and mechanical hypotheses. This is somewhat mysterious: such hypotheses frequently appear to be simply assumed, odd for a research program which emphasises the careful experimental accumulation of facts. Isaac Newton was one such experimental philosopher, and his optical work is considered a clear example of the experimental method. Focusing on his optical investigations, I identify three roles for hypotheses. Firstly, Newton introduces a hypothesis to explicate his abstract theory. The purpose here is primarily to improve understanding or uptake of the theory. Secondly, he uses a hypothesis as a platform from which to generate some crucial experiments to decide between competing accounts. The purpose here is to suggest experiments in order to bring a dispute to empirical resolution. Thirdly, he uses a hypothesis to suggest an underlying physical cause, which he then operationalises and repres...
Robert Smith’s A Compleat System of Opticks (1738) was the most prominent eighteenth-century text-book account of Newton’s optics. By rearranging the findings and conclusions of Opticks, it made them accessible to a wider public and at the same time refashioned Newton’s optics into a renewed science of optics. In this process, the optical parts of Principia were integrated, thus blending the experimental inferences and mechanistic hypotheses that Newton had carefully separated. The Compleat System was not isolated in its refashioning of Newton’s optics. Dutch and English promoters of the new philosophy had preceded Smith by giving Opticks a text-book treatment, and they too integrated experimental and mechanistic inferences. In this way eighteenth-century text-books produced a natural philosophical discourse of light, colors and matter. This paper traces the refashioning of Newton’s optics in Dutch and English text-books of natural philosophy during the first half of the eighteenth century. It concludes with the Dutch translation of A Compleat System of Opticks and its reception among innovators of telescope manufacture.
Salvaging Newton's 313 Year Old Corpuscular Theory of Light
viXra, 2017
As is well known – Newton's corpuscular model of light can explain the Law of Reflection and Snell's Law of Refraction. Sadly and regrettably – its predictions about the speed of light in different mediums runs contrary to experience. Because of this, Newton's theory of light was abandoned in favour of the wave theory. It [Newton's corpuscular model of light] predicts that the speed of light is larger in higher density mediums. This prediction was shown to be wrong by Foucault's 1850 landmark-ing experiment that brought down Newton's theory. The major assumption of Newton's corpuscular model of light is that the corpuscles of light have an attraction with the particle of the medium. When the converse is assumed, i.e., the corpuscles of light are assumed to not have an attraction-effect, but a repulsion-effect with the particles of the medium, one obtains the correct predictions of the speed of light in denser mediums. This assumption of Newton's corpu...
Note on the double refraction of compressed glass
2021
English translation of A. Fresnel, "Note sur la double réfraction du verre comprimé", <em>Annales de Chimie et de Physique</em>, Ser. 2, vol. 20, pp. 376–83 (1822), as reprinted in <em>Oeuvres complètes d'Augustin Fresnel</em>, vol. 1 (1866), pp. 713–18, with the corresponding extract from the "Table Analytique" in <em>Oeuvres complètes</em>..., vol. 3 (1870), at p. 595. Brewster has discovered that when a plate of glass between two polarizers is compressed or stretched in a single direction, it displays colors analogous to those of birefringent crystalline plates, whence he has promptly concluded that stress induces birefringence. As not all physicists were convinced that such colors were due to simple birefringence, Fresnel, in 1819, established by interference experiments that the propagation speed depends on whether the polarization is parallel or perpendicular to the compression. Although Fresnel himself was thereby co...
Hume's Colors and Newton's Colored Lights
Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 2018
In a 2004 paper, ‘Hume's Missing Shade of Blue Reconsidered from a Newtonian Perspective,’ Eric Schliesser argues that Hume's well-known discussion of the missing shade of blue ‘reveals considerable ignorance of Newton's achievement in optics,’ and that Hume has failed to assimilate the lessons taught by Newton's optical experiments. I argue in this paper, contrary to Schliesser, that Hume's views on color are logically and evidentially independent of Newton's results. In developing my reading, I will argue that Schliesser accepts an overly broad interpretation of the implications of Newton's experimental results, and takes inadequate account of Hume's disciplined methodological restrictions on the kinds of experiential evidence that are to be admitted in building the foundations of his science of human nature.