All was Light: An Introduction to Newton's OpticksOpticks, Newton's most popular book, is a complex work of genius and the fruit of forty years of thought and investigation. Newton devoted various periods of experimentation to this final expression of his life's work and drew on the results of successive interactions with other scientists and thinkers. This introduction to his book disentangles the different layers of Newton's thought processes in terms of his contemporary influences, and details the development of the final text. It explains problems that arose from Newton's changing ideas during the course of the book's long preparation, touching on such controversial issues of the time as the concepts of atomism, force, and the aether. The author also looks in detail at the way Newton has been interpreted both at home and abroad. This readable, non-mathematical book serves as an excellent introduction to Newton and the great achievement of Opticks and will fascinate students and general readers interested in natural philosophy and the history of science. |
Contents
1 The writing of Opticks | 1 |
experiment and polemic | 33 |
The book develops | 84 |
Copyright | |
3 other sections not shown
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Common terms and phrases
Académie aether Alan Shapiro Algarotti angle attractive force beam of light Bechler blue bodies Boyle Cambridge caused Christiaan Huygens chromatic aberration Cohen coloured rays corpuscles demonstrated Desaguliers Descartes Descartes's diffraction discovery dispersion distance dynamical edition electric English experimental explained geometrical geometrical optics glass gravity Guerlac heat Hooke Hooke's Huygens hypothesis ibid ideas interface Isaac Barrow later Leibniz lens less Letter Light and Colours light-particles mathematical mathematician matter mechanical medium Micrographia motion natural philosophy nature of light Newton's rings Newtonian optical force Optical Lectures Opticks particles perhaps phenomena physical Principia mathematica principle printed prism Proposition pulse Query 31 rainbow rays of light reflecting telescope reflection refrangibility repulsive Robert Hooke Royal Society seems sGravesande Shapiro spectrum speculations supposed surface telescope text of Opticks theory of colours theory of fits theory of light thickness thin plates transparent velocity vibrations Voltaire Westfall white light