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
So then the reason why uniform pellucid Mediums (such as Water, Glass,
or Crystal,) have no sensible Reflexion but in their external
Superficies, where they are adjacent to other Mediums of a different
density, is because all their contiguous parts have one and the same
degree of density.
PROP. II.
_The least parts of almost all natural Bodies are in some measure
transparent: And the Opacity of those Bodies ariseth from the multitude
of Reflexions caused in their internal Parts._
That this is so has been observed by others, and will easily be granted
by them that have been conversant with Microscopes. And it may be also
tried by applying any substance to a hole through which some Light is
immitted into a dark Room. For how opake soever that Substance may seem
in the open Air, it will by that means appear very manifestly
transparent, if it be of a sufficient thinness. Only white metalline
Bodies must be excepted, which by reason of their excessive density seem
to reflect almost all the Light incident on their first Superficies;
unless by solution in Menstruums they be reduced into very small
Particles, and then they become transparent.
PROP. III.
_Between the parts of opake and colour'd Bodies are many Spaces, either
empty, or replenish'd with Mediums of other Densities; as Water between
the tinging Corpuscles wherewith any Liquor is impregnated, Air between
the aqueous Globules that constitute Clouds or Mists; and for the most
part Spaces void of both Air and Water, but yet perhaps not wholly void
of all Substance, between the parts of hard Bodies._
The truth of this is evinced by the two precedent Propositions: For by
the second Proposition there are many Reflexions made by the internal
parts of Bodies, which, by the first Proposition, would not happen if
the parts of those Bodies were continued without any such Interstices
between them; because Reflexions are caused only in Superficies, which
intercede Mediums of a differing density, by _Prop._ 1.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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