scholarly journals IX. On the laws which regulate the polarisation of light by reflexion from transparent bodies. By David Brewster, LL. D. F. R. S. Edin. and F. S. A. Edin. In a letter addressed to Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. K. B. P. R. S

1815 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 125-159 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Angle Of Incidence ◽  
Double Refraction ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Refractive Power ◽  
Polarised Light ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Optics ◽  
General Fact

Dear Sir, The discovery of the polarisation of light by reflexion, con­stitutes a memorable epoch in the history of optics; and the name of Malus, who first made known this remarkable pro­perty of bodies, will be for ever associated with a branch of science which he had the sole merit of creating. By a few brilliant and comprehensive experiments he established the general fact, that light acquired the same property as one of the pencils formed by double refraction, when it was reflected at a particular angle from the surfaces of all transparent bodies: he found that the angle of incidence at which this property was communicated, was greater in bodies of a high refractive power, and he measured, with considerable accuracy, the polarising angles for glass and water. In order to discover the law which regulated the phenomena, he com­pared these angles with the refractive and dispersive powers of glass and water, and finding that there was no relation be­tween these properties of transparent bodies, he draws the following general conclusion. “The polarising angle neither“ follows the order of the refractive powers, nor that of the “dispersive forces. It is a property of bodies independent“ of the other modes of action which they exercise upon “light.“ This premature generalisation of a few imperfectly ascer­tained facts, is perhaps equalled only by the mistake of Sir Isaac Newton, who pronounced the construction of an achromatic telescope to be incompatible with the known principles of optics. Like Newton, too, Malus himself aban­doned the enquiry; and even his learned associates in the Institute, to whom he bequeathed the prosecution of his views, have sought for fame in the investigation of other properties of polarised light.

scholarly journals Bibliography of recent books and articles dealing with the history of the Royal Society

1970 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-133
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Charles Town ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
James Cook ◽  
John Hunter ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Sciences

Each number of Notes and Records contains a short bibliography of books and articles dealing with the history of the Royal Society or its Fellows which have been noted since the publication of the last number. If Fellows would be good enough to draw the Editor’s attention to omissions these would be added to the list in the next issue. Books Badash, L. (Editor). Rutherford and Boltwood: letters on radioactivity. (Yale studies in the History of Sciences and Medicine, Vol. 4.) New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. $12.50. Begg, A. C. and Begg, N.C. James Cook and New Zealand . Wellington, N.Z.: A. R. Shearer, 1969. £ 2 5s. Berkeley, E. and Berkeley, Dorothy, S. Dr Alexander Gordon of Charles Town . University of North Carolina Press, 1969. $10.00. Bestcrman, T. Voltaire. London: Longmans, 1969. 8s. Bowden, D. K. Leibniz as a librarian and eighteenth-century librarians Germany . London: University College, 1969. 7s. 6d. Darwin, C. R. Questions about the breeding of animals . Facsim. repr. with an introduction by Sir Gavin Dc Beer. London: Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1969. £1 15s. Davis, N. P. Lawrence and Openhimer . London: Cape, 1969. 2s. Dobson, J. John Hunter. Edinburgh & London: E. & S. Livingstone, 1969. £ 2 10s. Eales, N. B. The Cole library of early medicine and zoology . Catalogue of books and pamphlets. Part 1. 1472 to 1800. Oxford: Aldcn Press for the Library, University of Reading, 1969. £$ 5s. Edleston, J. (Editor). Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes . (1830.) (Cass Library of Science Classics. No. 12.) London: Frank Cass, 1969. £ 6 6s. Fothergill, B. Sir William Hamilton . Faber and Faber, 1969. £ 2 10s. French, R. K. Robert Whytt, the soul, and medicine . (Publications of the Wellcome Institute, No. 17.) London: Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1969. £ 2 5s.

scholarly journals XXVII.—On the Action of Uncrystallised Films upon Common and Polarised Light

1861 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 607-610
Author(s):  
David Brewster
Keyword(s):  
Angle Of Incidence ◽  
Refractive Power ◽  
Polarised Light ◽  
Constant Quantity

In a paper on the Polarisation of Light by Refraction, published in the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1814, I have shown that when a pencil of light is incident on a number of uncrystallised plates, inclined at the same or different angles to the incident ray, all their surfaces being perpendicular to the plane of the first incidence, the transmitted pencil will be wholly polarised, when the sum of the tangents of the angle of incidence upon each plate is equal to a constant quantity, depending upon the refractive power of the plates and the intensity of the incident pencil.

Brighter than how many suns? Sir Isaac Newton’s burning mirror

1989 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Radiant Heat ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Hearsay Evidence

There are a number of references in the scientific literature to a burning mirror designed by Sir Isaac Newton (1). Together, they record that it was made from seven separate concave glasses, each about a foot in diameter, that Newton demonstrated its effects at several meetings of the Royal Society and that he presented it to the Society. Nonetheless, neither the earliest published list of instruments possessed by the Royal Society nor the most recent one mentions the burning mirror; the latest compiler does not even include it amongst those items, once owned, now lost. No reference to the instrument apparently survives in the Society’s main records. It is not listed by the author of the recent compendium on Newton’s life and work (2). There is, however, some contemporary information still extant (Appendix 1). Notes of the principles of its design and some of its effects are to be found in the Society’s Journal Book for 1704; some of the dimensions and the arrangement of the mirrors are given in a Lexicon published by John Harris which he donated to the Royal Society at the same meeting, 12 July 1704, at which Newton gave the Society the speculum. The last reference in the Journal Book is dated 15 November that year, when Mr Halley, the then secretary to the Society, was desired to draw up an account of the speculum and its effects (3). No such account appears to have been presented to the Royal Society. There is no reference in Newton’s published papers and letters of his chasing Halley to complete the task, nor is there any mention of it in the general references to Halley. The latter was, of course, quite accustomed to performing odd jobs for Newton; that same year he was to help the Opticks through the press. The only other contemporary reference to the burning mirror, though only hearsay evidence since Flamsteed was not present at the meeting, is in a letter the latter wrote to James Pound; this confirms that there were seven mirrors and that the aperture of each was near a foot in diameter (4). Because John Harris gave his Dictionary to the Royal Society in Newton’s presence, it is reasonable to assume that his description is accurate. As Newton would hardly have left an inaccurate one unchallenged, then, belatedly, the account desired of Mr Halley can be presented. In some respects, the delay is advantageous, since the subject of radiant heat and its effects, although already by Newton’s period an ancient one, is today rather better understood. On the other hand, some data has to be inferred, that could have been measured, and some assumptions made about Newton’s procedures and understanding that could have been checked (5).

The Libraries of Newton, Hooke and Boyle

1966 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The demand and search for the scientific literature of the past has grown enormously in the last twenty years. In an age as conscious as ours of the significance of science to mankind, some scientists naturally turned their thoughts to the origins of science as we know it, how scientific theories grew and how discoveries were made. Both institutions and individual scientists partake in these interests and form collections of books necessary for their study. How did their predecessors fare in this respect? They, of course, formed their libraries at a time when books were easy to find—and cheap. But what did they select for their particular reading? For example, what did the libraries of the three greatest scientists of the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, look like? Fortunately in the case of Newton, the history of his books is now fairly clear, thanks to the devoted labours of Colonel R . de Villamil (i), but it is a sad reflection on our attitude to our great intellectual leaders that this library o f the greatest English scientist, whose work changed the world for hundreds of years, was not taken care of, was, in fact, forgotten and at times entirely neglected.

The Keynes Collection of the works of Sir Isaac Newton At King's College, Cambridge

1952 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-50 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Comprehensive Collection ◽  
King's College ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Period ◽  
The University

WHEN John Maynard, 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton, died in 1946 he left, with other benefactions to King’s College, Cambridge, of which he had been a Fellow for thirty-seven years, his great collection of books and manuscripts. He had been a book collector all his life, but the main period of his activity in this field was during the final ten years. During this decade he worked tirelessly at assembling a comprehensive collection of first and early editions of works which illustrated the history of thought—pure philosophy, political theory and a careful selection of books which represented fundamental advances in the realm of natural science. The most important section of the library is the Newton Collection, which comprised at the time of Lord Keynes’s death some 130 manuscripts, many very extensive, and about the same number of printed books. It is the purpose of the present paper to make its contents better known to Newtonian scholars. The sale of the Portsmouth papers in 1936 The event which stimulated Keynes to his greatest effort in bookcollecting was the dispersal at Sotheby’s on 13 and 14 July 1936 of the Newton papers of Viscount Lymington, to whom they had descended from Catherine Conduitt, Viscountess Lymington, Newton’s great-niece. The relentless pressure of death-duties made it necessary to sell this great collection which had remained intact in the family of the Earls of Portsmouth until 1872, when the purely scientific papers were generously given to the University of Cambridge. The vast residue—manuscripts containing perhaps 3000000 words altogether—comprised all Newton’s alchemical, theological and chronological papers, much of his correspondence, all his Mint papers, and much material relating to his personal life, as well as that which Conduitt had gathered for his unwritten biography.

1. From Newton to Einstein

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Timothy Clifton
Keyword(s):  
Gravitational Force ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Einstein Gravity ◽  
Space Time ◽  
The Other ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of Gravity ◽  
Fundamental Forces

Gravity is the weakest of nature’s four fundamental forces, yet over large distances it dominates. This is because gravity, unlike the other forces in nature, is only ever attractive. The gravitational force between objects always increases as they become larger and have more mass. Despite the efforts of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, gravity remains an enigmatic puzzle. ‘From Newton to Einstein’ considers the pre-history of gravity including the ideas of Aristotle and Galileo. It describes Newton’s theory of gravity, first published in 1687. It finally explains Einstein’s theory of gravity, which supplanted Newton’s theory, and explains that is the curvature of space-time that is responsible for it all.

scholarly journals Experiments for investigating the cause of the coloured concentric rings, discovered by Sir Isaac Newton , between two object-glasses laid upon one anther

1832 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 264-268
Keyword(s):  
Focal Length ◽  
Considerable Extent ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Made In

The account, given by Sir Isaac Newton, of these coloured arcs, appeared to Dr. Herschel highly interesting, but he was not satisfied with the explanation of them. Sir Isaac Newton accounts for the production of the rings, by ascribing to the rays of light certain fits of easy transmission and alternate reflection; but this hypothesis seemed not easily to be reconciled with the minuteness and extreme velocity of the particles of light. With the view of inquiring further into the cause of these phenomena, Dr. Herschel, so long since as the year 1792, borrowed of this Society the two object-glasses of Huygens, one of 122, and the other of 170 feet focal length. Notwithstanding various interruptions, the series of experiments, made in the course of this time, has been carried to a considerable extent; and Dr. Herschel thinks the conclusions that may be drawn from them, sufficiently well supported to point out several modifications of light that have been totally overlooked, and others that have not been properly discriminated.

scholarly journals On a point connected with the dispute about the invention of fluxions

1851 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 599-600
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
History Of

An assertion made by Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Conti, published in Raphson’s History of Fluxions, that the materials of the Commercium Epistolicum were “ collected and published by a numerous Committee of gentlemen of different nations , appointed by the Royal Society for that purpose,” appeared to be at variance with the list of the Committee as it was appointed on the 6th of March, 1711- 12, and which only contains the names of Arbuthnot, Hill, Halley, Jones, Machin and Burnet, who were all English. But on further search of the records of the Society with the aid of Mr. Weld, the Assistant Secretary, the author ascertained that other members were subsequently added to the Committee, among whom were Bonet, the Prussian minister, and De Moivre, both of whom were foreigners ; thus showing that the imputations which might have been cast on Newton’s veracity are groundless.

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