Experimental outlines, for a new theory of colours, light and vision : with critical remarks, on Sir Isaac Newton's opinions, and some new experiments on radiant caloric / by Joseph Reade, M.D.

  • Reade, Joseph.
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental outlines, for a new theory of colours, light and vision : with critical remarks, on Sir Isaac Newton's opinions, and some new experiments on radiant caloric / by Joseph Reade, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    the intervention of the prism ; therefore we may safely infer that those three rays, are con- densed into blackness, and rarefied into de- composition. 1 now pasted a piece of black cloth, four inches in length, on a white painted and well illuminated door. On applying the prism, the top of the black appeared blue, and violet underneath arising from the orange, which was brought down, blending with the black light. Black occupied the middle, the cloth being too long for total decomposition. The lower fringe was orange, and the yellow rays spread over the white door. In this experiment a black substance was surrounded by a white one, & the length of the black parallelogram, was four inches when viewed by the naked eye, and five or more when seen thro the prism: a complete refutation of Newton’s assertion, u that the colours were produced, by the rays of the white substance spreading into the regions of the black. ” If we now reverse the experiment, by pasting a similar sized piece of white paper on a black