Light

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A. and C. Black, 1884 - 276 pages
 

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Page 103 - ... the eye to converge red light. The line B, between red and green, in a certain position of the prism, is perfectly distinct ; so also are D and E, the two limits of violet ; but c, the limit of green and blue, is not so clearly marked as the rest : and there are also, on each side of this limit, other distinct dark lines, f and g, either of which in an imperfect experiment might be mistaken for the boundary of these colours.
Page 77 - And in order thereto, having darkened my chamber, and made a small hole in my window-shuts, to let in a convenient quantity of the sun's light, I placed my prism at its entrance, that it might be thereby refracted to the opposite wall. It was at first a very pleasing divertisement, to view the vivid and intense colours produced thereby ; but after a while applying myself to consider them more circumspectly, I became surprised to see them in an oblong form, which, according to the received laws of...
Page 76 - I shall without further ceremony acquaint you, that in the beginning of the year 1666 (at which time I applied myself to the grinding of Optic glasses of other figures than Spherical) I procured me a triangular glass-prisme, to try therewith the celebrated Phaenomena of Colours.
Page 181 - I shall endeavour to explain this law by a comparison : — Suppose a number of equal -waves of water to move upon the surface of a stagnant lake, with a certain constant velocity, and to enter a narrow channel leading out of the lake ; suppose, then, another similar cause to have...
Page 81 - Prisme in my hand, and turned it to and fro slowly about its Axis, so much as to make the several parts of the Image, cast on the second board, successively pass through the hole in it, that I might observe to what places on the wall the second Prisme would refract them.
Page 16 - Do not all fixed bodies, when heated beyond a certain degree, emit light and shine, and is not this emission performed by the vibrating motions of their parts?
Page 102 - The line A that bounds the red side of the spectrum is somewhat confused, which seems in part owing to want of power in the eye to converge red light. The line B, between red and green, in a certain position of the prism, is perfectly distinct ; so also are Band E, the two limits of violet.
Page 182 - Neither series of waves will destroy the other, but their effects will be combined: if they enter the channel in such a manner that the elevations of one series coincide with those of the other, they must together produce a series of greater joint elevations; but if the elevations of one series are so situated as to correspond to the depressions of the other, they must exactly fill up those depressions, and the surface of the water must remain smooth; at least I can discover no alternative, either...
Page 81 - ... through the hole in it, that I might observe to what places on the wall the second prism would refract them. And I saw, by the variation of those places, that the light tending to that end of the image, towards which the refraction of the first prism was made, did in the second prism suffer a refraction considerably greater than the light tending to the other end. And so the true cause of the length of that image was detected to be no other than that light consists of rays differently refrangible,...
Page 77 - Comparing the length of this coloured spectrum with its breadth, I found it about five times greater; a disproportion so extravagant, that it excited me to a more than ordinary curiosity of examining from whence it might proceed. I could scarce think, that the various thickness of the glass, or the termination with shadow or darkness, could have any influence on light to produce such an effect; yet I thought it not amiss, first to examine those circumstances, and so...

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