
the appropriate dimensions deduced from the phenomena of thin plates. Hence it happens, that when a line of the light proceeding to form an image of the rings of colours of thin plates, is intercepted by a prism, and an actual picture is formed, resembling the scale delineated by Newton from theory, for estimating the colours of particles of given dimensions, the oblique spectrums, formed by the different colours of each series, are not straight, but curved, the lateral refraction of the prism separating the violet end more widely than the red. The thickness corresponding to the extreme red , the line of yellow, bright green, bright blue, and extreme violet, I found to be inversely as the numbers 27, 30, 35, 40, and 45, respectively. In consequence of Dr. Wollaston’s correction of the description <s>division <\s> of the prismatic spectrum, compared with these observations, it becomes necessary to modify the supposition that I advanced in the last Bakerian lecture respecting the proportions of the sympathetic fibres of the retina; substituting red, green, and violet, for red, yellow and blue, and the numbers 7, 6, and 5, for 8, 7, and 6. The same prismatic analysis of the colours of thin plates, appears to furnish a satisfactory explanation of the subdivision of the light of the lower part of a candle <s>observed also by Dr. Wollaston <\s>: for, in fact, the light transmitted through every part of a thin plate, is divided in a similar manner into distinct portions, increasing in number with the thickness of the plate until they become too minute to be visible. At the <s>Opposite <\s> thickness corresponding to the ninth or tenth <s>the tenth or eleventh <\s> portion of red light, the number of portions of different colours is <s>six<\s> five, and their proportions, as exhibited by refraction, are nearly the same as in the light of a candle, the violet being the broadest. We have only to suppose
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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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