Treatise on Light Part 3

Let BC be the wave which brings the light to the spectator who is at B, and let BD be the straight line which intersects this wave at right angles. Now because the ray or straight line by which we judge the spot where the object appears to us is nothing else than the perpendicular to the wave that reaches our eye, as will be understood by what was said above, it is manifest that the point A will be perceived as being in the line BD, and therefore higher than in fact it is.

Similarly if the Earth be AB, and the top of the Atmosphere CD, which probably is not a well defined spherical surface (since we know that the air becomes rare in proportion as one ascends, for above there is so much less of it to press down upon it), the waves of light from the sun coming, for instance, in such a way that so long as they have not reached the Atmosphere CD the straight line AE intersects them perpendicularly, they ought, when they enter the Atmosphere, to advance more quickly in elevated regions than in regions nearer to the Earth. So that if CA is the wave which brings the light to the spectator at A, its region C will be the furthest advanced; and the straight line AF, which intersects this wave at right angles, and which determines the apparent place of the Sun, will pa.s.s above the real Sun, which will be seen along the line AE. And so it may occur that when it ought not to be visible in the absence of vapours, because the line AE encounters the rotundity of the Earth, it will be perceived in the line AF by refraction. But this angle EAF is scarcely ever more than half a degree because the attenuation of the vapours alters the waves of light but little. Furthermore these refractions are not altogether constant in all weathers, particularly at small elevations of 2 or 3 degrees; which results from the different quant.i.ty of aqueous vapours rising above the Earth.

And this same thing is the cause why at certain times a distant object will be hidden behind another less distant one, and yet may at another time be able to be seen, although the spot from which it is viewed is always the same. But the reason for this effect will be still more evident from what we are going to remark touching the curvature of rays. It appears from the things explained above that the progression or propagation of a small part of a wave of light is properly what one calls a ray. Now these rays, instead of being straight as they are in h.o.m.ogeneous media, ought to be curved in an atmosphere of unequal penetrability. For they necessarily follow from the object to the eye the line which intersects at right angles all the progressions of the waves, as in the first figure the line AEB does, as will be shown hereafter; and it is this line which determines what interposed bodies would or would not hinder us from seeing the object. For although the point of the steeple A appears raised to D, it would yet not appear to the eye B if the tower H was between the two, because it crosses the curve AEB. But the tower E, which is beneath this curve, does not hinder the point A from being seen. Now according as the air near the Earth exceeds in density that which is higher, the curvature of the ray AEB becomes greater: so that at certain times it pa.s.ses above the summit E, which allows the point A to be perceived by the eye at B; and at other times it is intercepted by the same tower E which hides A from this same eye.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

But to demonstrate this curvature of the rays conformably to all our preceding Theory, let us imagine that AB is a small portion of a wave of light coming from the side C, which we may consider as a straight line. Let us also suppose that it is perpendicular to the Horizon, the portion B being nearer to the Earth than the portion A; and that because the vapours are less hindering at A than at B, the particular wave which comes from the point A spreads through a certain s.p.a.ce AD while the particular wave which starts from the point B spreads through a shorter s.p.a.ce BE; AD and BE being parallel to the Horizon.

Further, supposing the straight lines FG, HI, etc., to be drawn from an infinitude of points in the straight line AB and to terminate on the line DE (which is straight or may be considered as such), let the different penetrabilities at the different heights in the air between A and B be represented by all these lines; so that the particular wave, originating from the point F, will spread across the s.p.a.ce FG, and that from the point H across the s.p.a.ce HI, while that from the point A spreads across the s.p.a.ce AD.

Now if about the centres A, B, one describes the circles DK, EL, which represent the spreading of the waves which originate from these two points, and if one draws the straight line KL which touches these two circles, it is easy to see that this same line will be the common tangent to all the other circles drawn about the centres F, H, etc.; and that all the points of contact will fall within that part of this line which is comprised between the perpendiculars AK, BL. Then it will be the line KL which will terminate the movement of the particular waves originating from the points of the wave AB; and this movement will be stronger between the points KL, than anywhere else at the same instant, since an infinitude of circ.u.mferences concur to form this straight line; and consequently KL will be the propagation of the portion of wave AB, as has been said in explaining reflexion and ordinary refraction. Now it appears that AK and BL dip down toward the side where the air is less easy to penetrate: for AK being longer than BL, and parallel to it, it follows that the lines AB and KL, being prolonged, would meet at the side L. But the angle K is a right angle: hence KAB is necessarily acute, and consequently less than DAB. If one investigates in the same way the progression of the portion of the wave KL, one will find that after a further time it has arrived at MN in such a manner that the perpendiculars KM, LN, dip down even more than do AK, BL. And this suffices to show that the ray will continue along the curved line which intersects all the waves at right angles, as has been said.

CHAPTER V

ON THE STRANGE REFRACTION OF ICELAND CRYSTAL

1.

There is brought from Iceland, which is an Island in the North Sea, in the lat.i.tude of 66 degrees, a kind of Crystal or transparent stone, very remarkable for its figure and other qualities, but above all for its strange refractions. The causes of this have seemed to me to be worthy of being carefully investigated, the more so because amongst transparent bodies this one alone does not follow the ordinary rules with respect to rays of light. I have even been under some necessity to make this research, because the refractions of this Crystal seemed to overturn our preceding explanation of regular refraction; which explanation, on the contrary, they strongly confirm, as will be seen after they have been brought under the same principle. In Iceland are found great lumps of this Crystal, some of which I have seen of 4 or 5 pounds. But it occurs also in other countries, for I have had some of the same sort which had been found in France near the town of Troyes in Champagne, and some others which came from the Island of Corsica, though both were less clear and only in little bits, scarcely capable of letting any effect of refraction be observed.

2. The first knowledge which the public has had about it is due to Mr.

Erasmus Bartholinus, who has given a description of Iceland Crystal and of its chief phenomena. But here I shall not desist from giving my own, both for the instruction of those who may not have seen his book, and because as respects some of these phenomena there is a slight difference between his observations and those which I have made: for I have applied myself with great exact.i.tude to examine these properties of refraction, in order to be quite sure before undertaking to explain the causes of them.

3. As regards the hardness of this stone, and the property which it has of being easily split, it must be considered rather as a species of Talc than of Crystal. For an iron spike effects an entrance into it as easily as into any other Talc or Alabaster, to which it is equal in gravity.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

4. The pieces of it which are found have the figure of an oblique parallelepiped; each of the six faces being a parallelogram; and it admits of being split in three directions parallel to two of these opposed faces. Even in such wise, if you will, that all the six faces are equal and similar rhombuses. The figure here added represents a piece of this Crystal. The obtuse angles of all the parallelograms, as C, D, here, are angles of 101 degrees 52 minutes, and consequently the acute angles, such as A and B, are of 78 degrees 8 minutes.

5. Of the solid angles there are two opposite to one another, such as C and E, which are each composed of three equal obtuse plane angles.

The other six are composed of two acute angles and one obtuse. All that I have just said has been likewise remarked by Mr. Bartholinus in the aforesaid treatise; if we differ it is only slightly about the values of the angles. He recounts moreover some other properties of this Crystal; to wit, that when rubbed against cloth it attracts straws and other light things as do amber, diamond, gla.s.s, and Spanish wax. Let a piece be covered with water for a day or more, the surface loses its natural polish. When aquafortis is poured on it it produces ebullition, especially, as I have found, if the Crystal has been pulverized. I have also found by experiment that it may be heated to redness in the fire without being in anywise altered or rendered less transparent; but a very violent fire calcines it nevertheless. Its transparency is scarcely less than that of water or of Rock Crystal, and devoid of colour. But rays of light pa.s.s through it in another fas.h.i.+on and produce those marvellous refractions the causes of which I am now going to try to explain; reserving for the end of this Treatise the statement of my conjectures touching the formation and extraordinary configuration of this Crystal.

6. In all other transparent bodies that we know there is but one sole and simple refraction; but in this substance there are two different ones. The effect is that objects seen through it, especially such as are placed right against it, appear double; and that a ray of sunlight, falling on one of its surfaces, parts itself into two rays and traverses the Crystal thus.

7. It is again a general law in all other transparent bodies that the ray which falls perpendicularly on their surface pa.s.ses straight on without suffering refraction, and that an oblique ray is always refracted. But in this Crystal the perpendicular ray suffers refraction, and there are oblique rays which pa.s.s through it quite straight.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

8. But in order to explain these phenomena more particularly, let there be, in the first place, a piece ABFE of the same Crystal, and let the obtuse angle ACB, one of the three which const.i.tute the equilateral solid angle C, be divided into two equal parts by the straight line CG, and let it be conceived that the Crystal is intersected by a plane which pa.s.ses through this line and through the side CF, which plane will necessarily be perpendicular to the surface AB; and its section in the Crystal will form a parallelogram GCFH. We will call this section the princ.i.p.al section of the Crystal.

9. Now if one covers the surface AB, leaving there only a small aperture at the point K, situated in the straight line CG, and if one exposes it to the sun, so that his rays face it perpendicularly above, then the ray IK will divide itself at the point K into two, one of which will continue to go on straight by KL, and the other will separate itself along the straight line KM, which is in the plane GCFH, and which makes with KL an angle of about 6 degrees 40 minutes, tending from the side of the solid angle C; and on emerging from the other side of the Crystal it will turn again parallel to JK, along MZ.

And as, in this extraordinary refraction, the point M is seen by the refracted ray MKI, which I consider as going to the eye at I, it necessarily follows that the point L, by virtue of the same refraction, will be seen by the refracted ray LRI, so that LR will be parallel to MK if the distance from the eye KI is supposed very great.

The point L appears then as being in the straight line IRS; but the same point appears also, by ordinary refraction, to be in the straight line IK, hence it is necessarily judged to be double. And similarly if L be a small hole in a sheet of paper or other substance which is laid against the Crystal, it will appear when turned towards daylight as if there were two holes, which will seem the wider apart from one another the greater the thickness of the Crystal.

10. Again, if one turns the Crystal in such wise that an incident ray NO, of sunlight, which I suppose to be in the plane continued from GCFH, makes with GC an angle of 73 degrees and 20 minutes, and is consequently nearly parallel to the edge CF, which makes with FH an angle of 70 degrees 57 minutes, according to the calculation which I shall put at the end, it will divide itself at the point O into two rays, one of which will continue along OP in a straight line with NO, and will similarly pa.s.s out of the other side of the crystal without any refraction; but the other will be refracted and will go along OQ.

And it must be noted that it is special to the plane through GCF and to those which are parallel to it, that all incident rays which are in one of these planes continue to be in it after they have entered the Crystal and have become double; for it is quite otherwise for rays in all other planes which intersect the Crystal, as we shall see afterwards.

11. I recognized at first by these experiments and by some others that of the two refractions which the ray suffers in this Crystal, there is one which follows the ordinary rules; and it is this to which the rays KL and OQ belong. This is why I have distinguished this ordinary refraction from the other; and having measured it by exact observation, I found that its proportion, considered as to the Sines of the angles which the incident and refracted rays make with the perpendicular, was very precisely that of 5 to 3, as was found also by Mr. Bartholinus, and consequently much greater than that of Rock Crystal, or of gla.s.s, which is nearly 3 to 2.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

12. The mode of making these observations exactly is as follows. Upon a leaf of paper fixed on a thoroughly flat table there is traced a black line AB, and two others, CED and KML, which cut it at right angles and are more or less distant from one another according as it is desired to examine a ray that is more or less oblique. Then place the Crystal upon the intersection E so that the line AB concurs with that which bisects the obtuse angle of the lower surface, or with some line parallel to it. Then by placing the eye directly above the line AB it will appear single only; and one will see that the portion viewed through the Crystal and the portions which appear outside it, meet together in a straight line: but the line CD will appear double, and one can distinguish the image which is due to regular refraction by the circ.u.mstance that when one views it with both eyes it seems raised up more than the other, or again by the circ.u.mstance that, when the Crystal is turned around on the paper, this image remains stationary, whereas the other image s.h.i.+fts and moves entirely around.

Afterwards let the eye be placed at I (remaining always in the plane perpendicular through AB) so that it views the image which is formed by regular refraction of the line CD making a straight line with the remainder of that line which is outside the Crystal. And then, marking on the surface of the Crystal the point H where the intersection E appears, this point will be directly above E. Then draw back the eye towards O, keeping always in the plane perpendicular through AB, so that the image of the line CD, which is formed by ordinary refraction, may appear in a straight line with the line KL viewed without refraction; and then mark on the Crystal the point N where the point of intersection E appears.

13. Then one will know the length and position of the lines NH, EM, and of HE, which is the thickness of the Crystal: which lines being traced separately upon a plan, and then joining NE and NM which cuts HE at P, the proportion of the refraction will be that of EN to NP, because these lines are to one another as the sines of the angles NPH, NEP, which are equal to those which the incident ray ON and its refraction NE make with the perpendicular to the surface. This proportion, as I have said, is sufficiently precisely as 5 to 3, and is always the same for all inclinations of the incident ray.

14. The same mode of observation has also served me for examining the extraordinary or irregular refraction of this Crystal. For, the point H having been found and marked, as aforesaid, directly above the point E, I observed the appearance of the line CD, which is made by the extraordinary refraction; and having placed the eye at Q, so that this appearance made a straight line with the line KL viewed without refraction, I ascertained the triangles REH, RES, and consequently the angles RSH, RES, which the incident and the refracted ray make with the perpendicular.

15. But I found in this refraction that the ratio of FR to RS was not constant, like the ordinary refraction, but that it varied with the varying obliquity of the incident ray.

16. I found also that when QRE made a straight line, that is, when the incident ray entered the Crystal without being refracted (as I ascertained by the circ.u.mstance that then the point E viewed by the extraordinary refraction appeared in the line CD, as seen without refraction) I found, I say, then that the angle QRG was 73 degrees 20 minutes, as has been already remarked; and so it is not the ray parallel to the edge of the Crystal, which crosses it in a straight line without being refracted, as Mr. Bartholinus believed, since that inclination is only 70 degrees 57 minutes, as was stated above. And this is to be noted, in order that no one may search in vain for the cause of the singular property of this ray in its parallelism to the edges mentioned.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

17. Finally, continuing my observations to discover the nature of this refraction, I learned that it obeyed the following remarkable rule. Let the parallelogram GCFH, made by the princ.i.p.al section of the Crystal, as previously determined, be traced separately. I found then that always, when the inclinations of two rays which come from opposite sides, as VK, SK here, are equal, their refractions KX and KT meet the bottom line HF in such wise that points X and T are equally distant from the point M, where the refraction of the perpendicular ray IK falls; and this occurs also for refractions in other sections of this Crystal. But before speaking of those, which have also other particular properties, we will investigate the causes of the phenomena which I have already reported.

It was after having explained the refraction of ordinary transparent bodies by means of the spherical emanations of light, as above, that I resumed my examination of the nature of this Crystal, wherein I had previously been unable to discover anything.

18. As there were two different refractions, I conceived that there were also two different emanations of waves of light, and that one could occur in the ethereal matter extending through the body of the Crystal. Which matter, being present in much larger quant.i.ty than is that of the particles which compose it, was alone capable of causing transparency, according to what has been explained heretofore. I attributed to this emanation of waves the regular refraction which is observed in this stone, by supposing these waves to be ordinarily of spherical form, and having a slower progression within the Crystal than they have outside it; whence proceeds refraction as I have demonstrated.

19. As to the other emanation which should produce the irregular refraction, I wished to try what Elliptical waves, or rather spheroidal waves, would do; and these I supposed would spread indifferently both in the ethereal matter diffused throughout the crystal and in the particles of which it is composed, according to the last mode in which I have explained transparency. It seemed to me that the disposition or regular arrangement of these particles could contribute to form spheroidal waves (nothing more being required for this than that the successive movement of light should spread a little more quickly in one direction than in the other) and I scarcely doubted that there were in this crystal such an arrangement of equal and similar particles, because of its figure and of its angles with their determinate and invariable measure. Touching which particles, and their form and disposition, I shall, at the end of this Treatise, propound my conjectures and some experiments which confirm them.

20. The double emission of waves of light, which I had imagined, became more probable to me after I had observed a certain phenomenon in the ordinary [Rock] Crystal, which occurs in hexagonal form, and which, because of this regularity, seems also to be composed of particles, of definite figure, and ranged in order. This was, that this crystal, as well as that from Iceland, has a double refraction, though less evident. For having had cut from it some well polished Prisms of different sections, I remarked in all, in viewing through them the flame of a candle or the lead of window panes, that everything appeared double, though with images not very distant from one another. Whence I understood the reason why this substance, though so transparent, is useless for Telescopes, when they have ever so little length.

21. Now this double refraction, according to my Theory hereinbefore established, seemed to demand a double emission of waves of light, both of them spherical (for both the refractions are regular) and those of one series a little slower only than the others. For thus the phenomenon is quite naturally explained, by postulating substances which serve as vehicle for these waves, as I have done in the case of Iceland Crystal. I had then less trouble after that in admitting two emissions of waves in one and the same body. And since it might have been objected that in composing these two kinds of crystal of equal particles of a certain figure, regularly piled, the interstices which these particles leave and which contain the ethereal matter would scarcely suffice to transmit the waves of light which I have localized there, I removed this difficulty by regarding these particles as being of a very rare texture, or rather as composed of other much smaller particles, between which the ethereal matter pa.s.ses quite freely.

This, moreover, necessarily follows from that which has been already demonstrated touching the small quant.i.ty of matter of which the bodies are built up.

22. Supposing then these spheroidal waves besides the spherical ones, I began to examine whether they could serve to explain the phenomena of the irregular refraction, and how by these same phenomena I could determine the figure and position of the spheroids: as to which I obtained at last the desired success, by proceeding as follows.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

23. I considered first the effect of waves so formed, as respects the ray which falls perpendicularly on the flat surface of a transparent body in which they should spread in this manner. I took AB for the exposed region of the surface. And, since a ray perpendicular to a plane, and coming from a very distant source of light, is nothing else, according to the precedent Theory, than the incidence of a portion of the wave parallel to that plane, I supposed the straight line RC, parallel and equal to AB, to be a portion of a wave of light, in which an infinitude of points such as RH_h_C come to meet the surface AB at the points AK_k_B. Then instead of the hemispherical partial waves which in a body of ordinary refraction would spread from each of these last points, as we have above explained in treating of refraction, these must here be hemi-spheroids. The axes (or rather the major diameters) of these I supposed to be oblique to the plane AB, as is AV the semi-axis or semi-major diameter of the spheroid SVT, which represents the partial wave coming from the point A, after the wave RC has reached AB. I say axis or major diameter, because the same ellipse SVT may be considered as the section of a spheroid of which the axis is AZ perpendicular to AV. But, for the present, without yet deciding one or other, we will consider these spheroids only in those sections of them which make ellipses in the plane of this figure. Now taking a certain s.p.a.ce of time during which the wave SVT has spread from A, it would needs be that from all the other points K_k_B there should proceed, in the same time, waves similar to SVT and similarly situated. And the common tangent NQ of all these semi-ellipses would be the propagation of the wave RC which fell on AB, and would be the place where this movement occurs in much greater amount than anywhere else, being made up of arcs of an infinity of ellipses, the centres of which are along the line AB.

24. Now it appeared that this common tangent NQ was parallel to AB, and of the same length, but that it was not directly opposite to it, since it was comprised between the lines AN, BQ, which are diameters of ellipses having A and B for centres, conjugate with respect to diameters which are not in the straight line AB. And in this way I comprehended, a matter which had seemed to me very difficult, how a ray perpendicular to a surface could suffer refraction on entering a transparent body; seeing that the wave RC, having come to the aperture AB, went on forward thence, spreading between the parallel lines AN, BQ, yet itself remaining always parallel to AB, so that here the light does not spread along lines perpendicular to its waves, as in ordinary refraction, but along lines cutting the waves obliquely.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

25. Inquiring subsequently what might be the position and form of these spheroids in the crystal, I considered that all the six faces produced precisely the same refractions. Taking, then, the parallelopiped AFB, of which the obtuse solid angle C is contained between the three equal plane angles, and imagining in it the three princ.i.p.al sections, one of which is perpendicular to the face DC and pa.s.ses through the edge CF, another perpendicular to the face BF pa.s.sing through the edge CA, and the third perpendicular to the face AF pa.s.sing through the edge BC; I knew that the refractions of the incident rays belonging to these three planes were all similar. But there could be no position of the spheroid which would have the same relation to these three sections except that in which the axis was also the axis of the solid angle C. Consequently I saw that the axis of this angle, that is to say the straight line which traversed the crystal from the point C with equal inclination to the edges CF, CA, CB was the line which determined the position of the axis of all the spheroidal waves which one imagined to originate from some point, taken within or on the surface of the crystal, since all these spheroids ought to be alike, and have their axes parallel to one another.

26. Considering after this the plane of one of these three sections, namely that through GCF, the angle of which is 109 degrees 3 minutes, since the angle F was shown above to be 70 degrees 57 minutes; and, imagining a spheroidal wave about the centre C, I knew, because I have just explained it, that its axis must be in the same plane, the half of which axis I have marked CS in the next figure: and seeking by calculation (which will be given with others at the end of this discourse) the value of the angle CGS, I found it 45 degrees 20 minutes.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

27. To know from this the form of this spheroid, that is to say the proportion of the semi-diameters CS, CP, of its elliptical section, which are perpendicular to one another, I considered that the point M where the ellipse is touched by the straight line FH, parallel to CG, ought to be so situated that CM makes with the perpendicular CL an angle of 6 degrees 40 minutes; since, this being so, this ellipse satisfies what has been said about the refraction of the ray perpendicular to the surface CG, which is inclined to the perpendicular CL by the same angle. This, then, being thus disposed, and taking CM at 100,000 parts, I found by the calculation which will be given at the end, the semi-major diameter CP to be 105,032, and the semi-axis CS to be 93,410, the ratio of which numbers is very nearly 9 to 8; so that the spheroid was of the kind which resembles a compressed sphere, being generated by the revolution of an ellipse about its smaller diameter. I found also the value of CG the semi-diameter parallel to the tangent ML to be 98,779.