
<s>XIII<\s> XIV An account of some cases of the production of colours, not hitherto described. By Thomas Young M. D. F. R. S. F. L. S. Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution Read July 1, 1802. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the theory of light and colours which I have lately had the honour of submitting to the Royal Society, it must at any rate be allowed that it has given <s>gi <\s> birth to the discovery of a simple and general law, capable of explaining a number of the phenomena of coloured light, which, without this law, would remain insulated and unintelligible. The law is, that “where- ever two portions of the same light arrive at the eye by different routes, either exactly or very nearly in the same direction, the light becomes most intense when the difference of the routes is any multiple of a certain length, and least intense in the intermediate state of the interfering portions; and this length is different for light of different colours.” I have already shown in detail, the suffi- ciency of this law for explaining all the phenomena described in the second and third book of Newton’s Optics, as well as some others not mentioned by Newton.
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Manuscript details
- Author
- Thomas Young
- Reference
- L&P/12/32
- Series
- L&P
- Date
- 1800
- IIIF
-
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Cite as
An Account of Some Cases of the Production ofColours, Not Hitherto Described. Thomas Young., 1800. From The Royal Society, L&P/12/32
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