Tag Archives: optics
WILLEBRORD SNELLIUS (1580-1626)
1621 – Holland
WILLEBRORD SNELL
'During refraction of light, the ratio of the sines of the angles of incidence ( i ) and refraction ( r ) is a constant equal to the refractive index of the medium'
In equation form: n1sini = n2 sinr
where n1 and n2 are the respective refractive indices of the two media.
The refractive index of a substance is a measure of its ability to bend light. The higher the number the better light is refracted. The refractive index of diamond, 2.42, is the highest of all gems.
Refraction is the change in direction of a ray of light when it crosses the boundary between two media. It happens because light has different speeds in different media. A ray of light entering a medium where the speed of light is less (from air to water, for example) bends towards the perpendicular to the boundary of the two media. It bends away from the perpendicular when it crosses from water to air. Refraction was known to ancient Greeks, but Snell, a Dutch mathematician, was the first to study it.
Posted in HISTORY OF SCIENCE, INDEX, LIGHT, OPTICS, PHYSICS, SEVENTEENTH.	Tagged HISTORY OF SCIENCE, Holland, law of refraction, light, optics, physics, science, seventeenth, Snell's law
RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)
1637 – France
RENE DESCARTES
'Cogito ergo sum' – The result of a thought experiment resolving to cast doubt on any and all of his beliefs, in order to discover which he was logically justified in holding.
Descartes argued that although all his experience could be the product of deception by an evil daemon, the demon could not deceive him if he did not exist.
His theory that all knowledge could be gathered in a single, complete science and his pursuit of a system of thought by which this could be achieved left him to speculate on the source and the truth of all existing knowledge. He rejected much of what was commonly accepted and only recognised facts that could intuitively be taken as being beyond any doubt.
His work 'Meditations on First Philosophy' (1641) is centered on his famous maxim. From this he would pursue all 'certainties' via a method of systematic, detailed mental analysis. This ultimately led to a detached, mechanistic interpretation of the natural world, reinforced in his metaphysical text 'Principia Philosophiae' (1644) in which he attempted to explain the universe according to the single system of logical, mechanical laws he had earlier envisaged and which, although largely inaccurate, would have an important influence even after Newton. He envisaged the human body as subject to the same mechanical laws as all matter; distinguished only by the mind, which operated as a distinct, separate entity.
Through his belief in the logical certainty of mathematics and his reasoning that the subject could be applied to give a superior interpretation of the universe came his 1637 appendix to the 'Discourse', entitled 'La Geometrie', Descartes sought to describe the application of mathematics to the plotting of a single point in space.
This led to the invention of 'Cartesian Coordinates' and allowed geometric expressions such as curves to be written for the first time as algebraic equations. He brought the symbolism of analytical geometry to his equations, thus going beyond what could be drawn. This bringing together of geometry and algebra was a significant breakthrough and could in theory predict the future course of any object in space given enough initial knowledge of its physical properties and movement.
Descartes showed that circular motion is in fact accelerated motion, and requires a cause, as opposed to uniform rectilinear motion in a straight line that has the property of inertia – and if there is to be any change in this motion a cause must be invoked.
By the 1660s, there were two rival theories about light. One, espoused by the French physicist Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) held that it was a stream of tiny particles, traveling at unimaginably high-speed. The other, put forward by Descartes, suggested that instead of anything physically moving from one place to another the universe was filled with some material (dubbed 'plenum'), which pressed against the eyes. This pressure, or 'tendency of motion', was supposed to produce the phenomenon of sight. Some action of a bright object, like the Sun, was supposed to push outwards. This push was transmitted instantaneously, and would be felt by the human eye looking at a bright object.
There were problems with these ideas. If light is a stream of tiny particles, what happens when two people stand face-to-face looking each other in the eye? And if sight is caused by the pressure of the plenum on the eye, then a person running at night should be able to see, because the runner's motion would make the plenum press against their eyes.
Descartes original theory is only a small step to a theory involving pulses of pressure spreading out from a bright object, like the pulses of pressure that would travel through water if you slap the surface, and exactly equivalent to pressure waves which explain how sound travels outward from its source.
Descartes – Dioptrique
download pdf (science.larouchepac.com)
Posted in HISTORY OF SCIENCE, INDEX, MATHEMATICS, MATHS, SEVENTEENTH, THEOLOGY.	Tagged Cartesian co-ordinates, Dioptrique, dualism, France, graph, HISTORY OF SCIENCE, light, Mathematics, maths, optics, Philosophy, plenum, Rene Descartes, science, seventeenth, THEOLOGY
ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
'Any two bodies attract each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them'
The force is known as gravitation
Expressed as an equation:
F = GmM/r2
where F is Force, m and M the masses of two bodies, r the distance between them and G the gravitational constant
This follows from KEPLER's laws, Newton's laws of motion and the laws of conic sections. Gravitation is the same thing as gravity. The word gravity is particularly used for the attraction of the Earth for other objects.
Newton stated that the law of gravitation is universal; it applies to all bodies in the universe. All historical speculation of different mechanical principles for the earth from the rest of the cosmos were cast aside in favour of a single system. He demonstrated that the planets were attracted toward the Sun by a force varying as the inverse square of the distance and generalized that all heavenly bodies mutually attract one another. Simple mathematical laws could explain a huge range of seemingly disconnected physical facts, providing science with the straightforward explanations it had been seeking since the time of the ancients. That the constant of gravitation is in fact constant was proved by careful experiment, that the focus of a body's centre of gravity appears to be a point at the centre of the object was proved by his calculus.
The angle of curve, by definition, is constantly changing, so it is difficult to calculate at any particular point. Similarly, it is difficult to calculate the area under a curve. Using ARCHIMEDES' method of employing polygons and rectangles to work out the areas of circles and curves, and to show how the tangent or slope of any point of a curve can be analyzed, Newton developed his work on the revolutionary mathematical and scientific ideas of RENE DESCARTES, which were just beginning to filter into England, to create the mathematics of calculus. Calculus studies how fast things change.
The idea of fluxions has become known as differentiation, a means of determining the slope of a line, and integration, of finding the area beneath a curve.
Newton's ideas on universal gravitation did not emerge until he began a controversial correspondence with ROBERT HOOKE in around 1680. Hooke claimed that he had solved the problem of planetary motion with an inverse square law that governed the way that planets moved. Hooke was right about the inverse square law, but he had no idea how it worked or how to prove it, he lacked the genius that permitted Newton to combine Kepler's laws of planetary motion with the assumption that an object falling towards Earth was the same kind of motion as the Earth's falling toward the Sun.
It was not until EDMUND HALLEY challenged Newton in 1684 to show how planets could have the elliptical orbits described by Johannes Kepler, supposing the force of attraction by the Sun to be the reciprocal of their distance from it – and Newton replied that he already knew – that he fully articulated his laws of gravitation.
It amounts to deriving Kepler's first law by starting with the inverse square hypothesis of gravitation. Here the Sun attracts each of the planets with a force that is inversely proportional to the square of the distance of the planet from the Sun. From Kepler's second law, the force acting on the planets is centripetal. Newton says this is the same as gravitation.
In the previous half century, Kepler had shown that planets have elliptical orbits and GALILEO had shown that things accelerate at an even pace as they fall towards the ground. Newton realized that his ideas about gravity and the laws of motion, which he had only applied to the Earth, might apply to all physical objects, and work for the heavens too. Any object that has mass will be pulled towards any other object. The larger the mass, the greater the pull. Things were not simply falling but being pulled by an invisible force. Just as this force (of gravity) pulls things towards the Earth, it also keeps the Moon in its orbit round the Earth and the planets moving around the Sun. With mathematical proofs he showed that this force is the same everywhere and that the pull between two things depends on their mass and the square of the distance between them.
Title page of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Newton published his law of gravitation in his magnum opus Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) in 1687. In it Newton analyzed the motion of orbiting bodies, projectiles, pendulums and free fall near the Earth.
The first book of Principia states the laws of motion and deals with the general principles of mechanics. The second book is concerned mainly with the motion of fluids. The third book is considered the most spectacular and explains gravitation.
Why do two objects attract each other?
'I frame no hypotheses', said Newton
It was Newton's acceptance of the possibility that there are mysterious forces in the world, his passions for alchemy and the study of the influence of the Divine that led him to the idea of an invisible gravitational force – something that the more rationally minded Galileo had not been able to accept.
Newton's use of mathematical expression of physical occurrences underlined the standard for modern physics and his laws underpin our basic understanding of how things work on an everyday scale. The universality of the law of gravitation was challenged in 1915 when EINSTEIN published the theory of general relativity.
1670-71 Newton composes 'Methodis Fluxionum', his main work on calculus, which is not published until 1736. His secrecy meant that in the intervening period, the German mathematician LEIBNIZ could publish his own independently discovered version – he gave it the name calculus, which stuck.
LAWS OF MOTION
First Law: An object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion at that velocity until an external force acts on the object
Second Law: The sum of all forces (F) that act on an object is equal to the mass (m) of the object multiplied by the acceleration (a), or F = ma
Third Law: To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction
The first law
introduces the concept of inertia, the tendency of a body to resist change in its velocity. The law is completely general, applying to all objects and any force. The inertia of an object is related to its mass. Things keep moving in a straight line until they are acted on by a force. The Moon tries to move in a straight line, but gravity pulls it into an orbit.
Weight is not the same as mass.
The second law
explains the relationship between mass and acceleration, stating that a force can change the motion of an object according to the product of its mass and its acceleration. That is, the rate and direction of any change depends entirely on the strength of the force that causes it and how heavy the object is. If the Moon were closer to the Earth, the pull of gravity between them would be so strong that the Moon would be dragged down to crash into the Earth. If it were further away, gravity would be weaker and the Moon would fly off into space.
The third law
shows that forces always exist in pairs. Every action and reaction is equal and opposite, so that when two things crash together they bounce off one another with equal force.
1672 – New Theory about Light and Colours is his first published work and contains his proof that white light is made up of all colours of the spectrum. By using a prism to split daylight into the colours of the rainbow and then using another to recombine them into white light, he showed that white light is made up of all the colours of the spectrum, each of which is bent to a slightly different extent when it passes through a lens – each type of ray producing a different spectral colour.
Newton also had a practical side. In the 1660s his reflecting telescope bypassed the focusing problems caused by chromatic aberration in the refracting telescope of the type used by Galileo. Newton solved the problem by swapping the lenses for curved mirrors so that the light rays did not have to pass through glass but reflected off it.
At around the same time, the Dutch scientist CHRISTIAAN HUYGENS came up with the convincing but wholly contradictory theory that light travels in waves like ripples on a pond. Newton vigorously challenged anyone who tried to contradict his opinion on the theory of light, as Robert Hooke and Leibniz, who shared similar views to Huygens found out. Given Newton's standing, science abandoned the wave theory for the best part of two hundred years.
1704 – 'Optiks' published. In it he articulates his influential (if partly inaccurate) particle or corpuscle theory of light. Newton suggested that a beam of light is a stream of tiny particles or corpuscles, traveling at huge speed. If so, this would explain why light could travel through a vacuüm, where there is nothing to carry it. It also explained, he argued, why light travels in straight lines and casts sharp shadows – and is reflected from mirrors. His particle theory leads to an inverse square law that says that the intensity of light varies as the square of its distance from the source, just as gravity does. Newton was not dogmatic in Optiks, and shows an awareness of problems with the corpuscular theory.
In the mid-eighteenth century an English optician John Dolland realized that the problem of coloured images could largely be overcome by making two element glass lenses, in which a converging lens made from one kind of glass was sandwiched together with a diverging lens made of another type of glass. In such an 'achromatic' lens the spreading of white light into component colours by one element was cancelled out by the other.
During Newton's time as master of the mint, twenty-seven counterfeiters were executed.
Top 10 Contributors to Space Exploration (listverse.com)
Newton's Laws (quantumredpill.wordpress.com)
Posted in ALCHEMY, ASTRONOMY, HISTORY OF SCIENCE, INDEX, LIGHT, MATHS, MECHANICS, OPTICS, PHYSICS, SEVENTEENTH, THE STARS, WAVES.	Tagged acceleration due to gravity, Astronomy, calculus, chromatic aberration, corpuscle theory, Einstein, England, fluxions, force, Grantham, gravitation, gravitational constant, gravity, Halley, HISTORY OF SCIENCE, INDEX, inverse square law, Isaac Newton, Leibniz, light, Mathematics, maths, mechanics, methodis fluxionum, Newton, optics, Optiks, physics, Principia, reflecting telescope, relativity, Royal Society, science, seventeenth, spectrum, THE STARS, UK
ROBERT BUNSEN (1811- 99) GUSTAV KIRCHHOFF (1824- 87)
July 12, 2013 by historyofscience101
1860 – Germany
'Each chemical element, when heated to incandescence, produces its own characteristic lines in the spectrum of light'
For example, sodium produces two bright yellow lines.
Bunsen developed the Bunsen burner in 1855.
In the flame test the Bunsen burner's non-luminous flame does not interfere with the coloured flame given off by the sample.
Kirchhoff was a professor of physics at Heidelberg. Bunsen and Kirchhoff together developed the first spectroscope, a device used to produce and observe a spectrum. They used their spectroscope to discover two new elements, caesium (1860) and rubidium (1861).
In 1860 Kirchhoff made the discovery that when heated to incandescence, each element produces its own characteristic lines in the spectrum.
This means that each element emits light of a certain wavelength – sodium's spectrum has two yellow lines (wavelengths about 588 and 589 nanometres). The Sun's spectrum contains a number of dark lines, some of which correspond to these wavelengths.
The Swedish scientist ANDERS ANGSTROM had, four years earlier, found that a gas always absorbs light at the same wavelength that it emits light. If the gas is hotter than the light source, then more light is emitted by the gas than absorbed, creating a bright line in the spectrum of the light source. If the gas is cooler than the light source the opposite happens; more light is absorbed by the gas than is emitted, creating a dark line.
The dark solar D lines told Kirchhoff that sodium is present in the relatively cool outer atmosphere of the Sun. This could be tested in the laboratory by burning a piece of chalk in a hot oxygen-hydrogen torch. The intensely bright limelight that is produced may be passed through a cooler sodium flame and the light emerging examined through a spectroscope. Crossing the spectrum of the artificial light occur black lines at the same wavelength that a sodium flame emits light. This solved the mystery of the FRAUNHOFER LINES.
Scientists now had a means to determine the presence of elements in stars. By comparing the dark lines in the spectra of light from the stars with the bright lines produced by substances in the laboratory, Kirchhoff had been able to identify the elements that made up a celestial body millions of miles away in space.
GUSTAV KIRCHHOFF
In England the astronomer William Huggins recorded the spectra of hundreds of stars and showed the unmistakable fingerprints of familiar elements that are found on the Earth's surface. The stars are made of exactly the same kind of atoms as the Earth.
In 1868 Norman Lockyer described a spectral line in the yellow region very close to the wavelength of the two 'D' spectral lines of sodium. After repeated attempts to discover a substance that produced the same line on Earth, it appeared that the line did not correspond to any hitherto known element. Lockyer gave the element the name 'helium', the gas later to be found associated with radioactive decay in ores containing uranium.
ROBERT BUNSEN
Helium had not previously been found on Earth because it is both inert and lighter than air, ironic because after hydrogen, helium is the second most common element in the universe.
In 1904 RUTHERFORD would declare that the presence of helium in the Sun was evidence that sunlight was a product of radioactive processes. The absence of any FRAUNHOFER lines in sunlight that corresponded to radium dealt a blow to this hypothesis. Was there another way of releasing atomic energy than radioactivity?
spectroscopy (www.dmoz.org)
BunsenBurner download .pdf
Posted in CHEMISTRY, HISTORY OF SCIENCE, INDEX, LIGHT, NINETEENTH, PHYSICS.	Tagged atom, Bunsen, chemistry, Fraunhofer lines, Germany, Gustav Kirchhoff, HISTORY OF SCIENCE, light, nineteenth century, optics, physics, spectroscope, THE STARS