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
But farther; by the 24th Observation it appears, that there is a
constant relation between Colours and Refrangibility; the most
refrangible Rays being violet, the least refrangible red, and those of
intermediate Colours having proportionably intermediate degrees of
Refrangibility. And by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Observations, compared
with the 4th or 18th there appears to be the same constant relation
between Colour and Reflexibility; the violet being in like circumstances
reflected at least thicknesses of any thin Plate or Bubble, the red at
greatest thicknesses, and the intermediate Colours at intermediate
thicknesses. Whence it follows, that the colorifick Dispositions of
Rays are also connate with them, and immutable; and by consequence, that
all the Productions and Appearances of Colours in the World are derived,
not from any physical Change caused in Light by Refraction or Reflexion,
but only from the various Mixtures or Separations of Rays, by virtue of
their different Refrangibility or Reflexibility. And in this respect the
Science of Colours becomes a Speculation as truly mathematical as any
other part of Opticks. I mean, so far as they depend on the Nature of
Light, and are not produced or alter'd by the Power of Imagination, or
by striking or pressing the Eye.
THE
SECOND BOOK
OF
OPTICKS
_PART III._
_Of the permanent Colours of natural Bodies, and the Analogy between
them and the Colours of thin transparent Plates._
I am now come to another part of this Design, which is to consider how
the Phaenomena of thin transparent Plates stand related to those of all
other natural Bodies. Of these Bodies I have already told you that they
appear of divers Colours, accordingly as they are disposed to reflect
most copiously the Rays originally endued with those Colours. But their
Constitutions, whereby they reflect some Rays more copiously than
others, remain to be discover'd; and these I shall endeavour to manifest
in the following Propositions.
PROP. I.
_Those Superficies of transparent Bodies reflect the greatest quantity
of Light, which have the greatest refracting Power; that is, which
intercede Mediums that differ most in their refractive Densities. And in
the Confines of equally refracting Mediums there is no Reflexion._
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