Opticks : $b or, A treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections and colours of lightNewton, Isaac
Science
Opticks : $b or, A treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections and colours of light
Newton, Isaac
Optics -- Early works to 1800
_Obs._ 9. By looking through the two contiguous Object-glasses, I found
that the interjacent Air exhibited Rings of Colours, as well by
transmitting Light as by reflecting it. The central Spot was now white,
and from it the order of the Colours were yellowish red; black, violet,
blue, white, yellow, red; violet, blue, green, yellow, red, &c. But
these Colours were very faint and dilute, unless when the Light was
trajected very obliquely through the Glasses: For by that means they
became pretty vivid. Only the first yellowish red, like the blue in the
fourth Observation, was so little and faint as scarcely to be discern'd.
Comparing the colour'd Rings made by Reflexion, with these made by
transmission of the Light; I found that white was opposite to black, red
to blue, yellow to violet, and green to a Compound of red and violet.
That is, those parts of the Glass were black when looked through, which
when looked upon appeared white, and on the contrary. And so those which
in one case exhibited blue, did in the other case exhibit red. And the
like of the other Colours. The manner you have represented in the third
Figure, where AB, CD, are the Surfaces of the Glasses contiguous at E,
and the black Lines between them are their Distances in arithmetical
Progression, and the Colours written above are seen by reflected Light,
and those below by Light transmitted (p. 209).
_Obs._ 10. Wetting the Object-glasses a little at their edges, the Water
crept in slowly between them, and the Circles thereby became less and
the Colours more faint: Insomuch that as the Water crept along, one half
of them at which it first arrived would appear broken off from the other
half, and contracted into a less Room. By measuring them I found the
Proportions of their Diameters to the Diameters of the like Circles made
by Air to be about seven to eight, and consequently the Intervals of the
Glasses at like Circles, caused by those two Mediums Water and Air, are
as about three to four. Perhaps it may be a general Rule, That if any
other Medium more or less dense than Water be compress'd between the
Glasses, their Intervals at the Rings caused thereby will be to their
Intervals caused by interjacent Air, as the Sines are which measure the
Refraction made out of that Medium into Air.
_Obs._ 11. When the Water was between the Glasses, if I pressed the
upper Glass variously at its edges to make the Rings move nimbly from
one place to another, a little white Spot would immediately follow the
center of them, which upon creeping in of the ambient Water into that
place would presently vanish. Its appearance was such as interjacent Air
would have caused, and it exhibited the same Colours. But it was not
air, for where any Bubbles of Air were in the Water they would not
vanish. The Reflexion must have rather been caused by a subtiler Medium,
which could recede through the Glasses at the creeping in of the Water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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