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._ 10. When the beam of the Sun's Light was reflected back from the
Speculum not directly to the hole in the Window, but to a place a little
distant from it, the common center of that Spot, and of all the Rings of
Colours fell in the middle way between the beam of the incident Light,
and the beam of the reflected Light, and by consequence in the center of
the spherical concavity of the Speculum, whenever the Chart on which the
Rings of Colours fell was placed at that center. And as the beam of
reflected Light by inclining the Speculum receded more and more from the
beam of incident Light and from the common center of the colour'd Rings
between them, those Rings grew bigger and bigger, and so also did the
white round Spot, and new Rings of Colours emerged successively out of
their common center, and the white Spot became a white Ring
encompassing them; and the incident and reflected beams of Light always
fell upon the opposite parts of this white Ring, illuminating its
Perimeter like two mock Suns in the opposite parts of an Iris. So then
the Diameter of this Ring, measured from the middle of its Light on one
side to the middle of its Light on the other side, was always equal to
the distance between the middle of the incident beam of Light, and the
middle of the reflected beam measured at the Chart on which the Rings
appeared: And the Rays which form'd this Ring were reflected by the
Speculum in Angles equal to their Angles of Incidence, and by
consequence to their Angles of Refraction at their entrance into the
Glass, but yet their Angles of Reflexion were not in the same Planes
with their Angles of Incidence.
_Obs._ 11. The Colours of the new Rings were in a contrary order to
those of the former, and arose after this manner. The white round Spot
of Light in the middle of the Rings continued white to the center till
the distance of the incident and reflected beams at the Chart was about
7/8 parts of an Inch, and then it began to grow dark in the middle. And
when that distance was about 1-3/16 of an Inch, the white Spot was
become a Ring encompassing a dark round Spot which in the middle
inclined to violet and indigo. And the luminous Rings encompassing it
were grown equal to those dark ones which in the four first Observations
encompassed them, that is to say, the white Spot was grown a white Ring
equal to the first of those dark Rings, and the first of those luminous
Rings was now grown equal to the second of those dark ones, and the
second of those luminous ones to the third of those dark ones, and so
on. For the Diameters of the luminous Rings were now 1-3/16, 2-1/16,
2-2/3, 3-3/20, &c. Inches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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