Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries ThereuponHooke, Robert
History
Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon
Hooke, Robert
Magnifying glasses -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800; Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
an _Homogeneous medium_ cut the Rays at right angles.
But because all transparent _mediums_ are not _Homogeneous_ to one another,
therefore we will next examine how this pulse or motion will be propagated
through differingly transparent _mediums_. And here, according to the most
acute and excellent Philosopher _Des Cartes_, I suppose the sign of the
angle of inclination in the first _medium_ to be to the sign of refraction
in the second, As the density of the first, to the density of the second.
By density, I mean not the density in respect of gravity (with which the
refractions or transparency of _mediums_ hold no proportion) but in respect
onely to the _trajection_ of the Rays of light, in which respect they only
differ in this; that the one propagates the pulse more easily and weakly,
the other more slowly, but more strongly. But as for the pulses themselves,
they will by the refraction acquire another propriety, which we shall now
endeavour to explicate.
We will suppose therefore in the first Figure ACFD to be a physical Ray, or
ABC and DEF to be two Mathematical Rays, _trajected_ from a very remote
point of a luminous body through an _Homogeneous_ transparent _medium_ LLL,
and DA, EB, FC, to be small portions of the orbicular impulses which must
therefore cut the Rays at right angles; these Rays meeting with the plain
surface NO of a _medium_ that yields an easier _transitus_ to the
propagation of light, and falling _obliquely_ on it, they will in the
_medium_ MMM be refracted towards the perpendicular of the surface. And
because this _medium_ is more easily _trajected_ then the former by a
third, therefore the point C of the orbicular pulse FC will be mov’d to H
four spaces in the same time that F the other end of it is mov’d to G three
spaces, therefore the whole refracted pulse GH shall be _oblique_ to the
refracted Rays CHK and GI; and the angle GHC shall be an acute, and so much
the more acute by how much the greater the refraction be, then which
nothing is more evident, for the sign of the inclination is to the sign of
refraction as GF to TC the distance between the point C and the
perpendicular from G on CK, which being as four to three, HC being longer
then GF is longer also then TC, therefore the angle GHC is less than GTC.
So that henceforth the parts of the pulses GH and IK are mov’d ascew, or
cut the Rays at _oblique_ angles.
It is not my business in this place to set down the reasons why this or
that body should impede the Rays more, others less: as why Water should
transmit the Rays more easily, though more weakly than air. Onely thus much
in general I shall hint, that I suppose the _medium_ MMM to have less of
the transparent undulating subtile matter, and that matter to be less
implicated by it, whereas LLL I suppose to contain a greater quantity of
the fluid undulating substance, and this to be more implicated with the
particles of that _medium_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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