The Theory of Light

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Macmillan and Company, 1895 - 574 pages
 

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Page 541 - LIGHT: a Series of Simple, entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the Phenomena of Light, for the Use of. Students of every age.
Page 20 - Those that are averse from assenting to any new discoveries but such as they can explain by an hypothesis may for the present suppose that, as stones by falling upon water put the water into an undulating motion and all bodies by percussion excite vibrations in the air, so the rays of light...
Page 542 - THE FIRST THREE SECTIONS OF NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA, ' With Notes and Illustrations. Also a collection of Problems, principally intended as Examples of Newton's Methods. By PERCIVAL FROST, MA Third Edition.
Page 21 - And in like manner, when a Ray of Light falls upon the Surface of any pellucid Body, and is there refracted or reflected, may not Waves of Vibrations, or Tremors, be thereby excited in the refracting or reflecting Medium at the point of Incidence...
Page 21 - Is not vision performed chiefly by the vibrations of this medium., excited in the bottom of the eye by the rays of light, and propagated through the solid, pellucid, and uniform capillamenta of the nerves into the place of sensation?
Page 21 - ... after the manner that vibrations are propagated in the air for causing sound, and move faster than the rays so as to overtake them; and that when any ray is in that part of the vibration which conspires with its motion, it easily breaks through a refracting surface, but when it is in the contrary part of the vibration which impedes its motion, it is easily reflected; and, by consequence, that every ray is successively disposed to be easily reflected, or easily transmitted, by every vibration...
Page 21 - Is not this Medium much rarer within the dense Bodies of the Sun, Stars, Planets, and Comets, than in the empty celestial spaces between them ? And in passing from them to great distances, doth it not grow denser and denser perpetually, and...
Page 21 - ... and are not these vibrations propagated from the point of incidence to great distances ? And do they not overtake the rays of light, and by overtaking them successively, do they not put them into 1he fits of easy reflexion and easy transmission described above...
Page 74 - The laws of specular reflection are: (first law) the reflected ray lies in the same plane as the incident ray and the normal to the surface at the point of incidence...
Page 21 - Is not the Heat of the warm room convey'd through the Vacuum by the Vibrations of a much subtiler Medium than Air, which after the Air was drawn out remained in the Vacuum? And is not this Medium the same with that Medium by which Light is refracted and reflected, and by whose Vibrations Light communicates Heat to bodies .... And is not this Medium exceedingly more rare and subtile than the Air, and exceedingly more elastick and active?

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