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{{short description|Book by Isaac Newton}} {{about|the book by Newton|the subject in general|Optics|the computer program|Opticks (software)}} {{EngvarB|date=September 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}} {{Infobox book | italic title = <!--(see above)--> | name = Opticks | image = Opticks.jpg | image_size = | border = | alt = | caption = The first, 1704, edition of ''Opticks: or, a treatise of the reflexions, refractions, inflexions and colours of light.'' | author = [[Isaac Newton]] | audio_read_by = | title_orig = | orig_lang_code = | title_working = | translator = | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = Great Britain | language = [[English language|English]] | series = | release_number = | subject = [[Optics]] | genre = Non-fiction | set_in = | publisher = | publisher2 = | pub_date = 1704 | english_pub_date = | published = | media_type = Print | pages = | awards = | isbn = | isbn_note = | oclc = | dewey = | congress = | preceded_by = | followed_by = | native_wikisource = | wikisource = Opticks (4th Ed) | notes = | exclude_cover = | website = }} '''''Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light''''' is a collection of three books by [[Isaac Newton]] that was published in [[English language|English]] in 1704 (a scholarly [[Latin]] translation appeared in 1706).<ref name=Opticks>{{cite book|last=Newton|first=Isaac|author-link=Isaac Newton |title=Opticks: or, a treatise of the reflexions, refractions, inflexions and colours of light. Also two treatises of the species and magnitude of curvilinear figures.|date=1998|publisher=Octavo|location=Palo Alto, Calif.|isbn=1-891788-04-3|edition=Octavo |others=Commentary by Nicholas Humez}} (''Opticks'' was originally published in 1704).</ref> The treatise analyzes the fundamental nature of [[light]] by means of the [[refraction]] of light with prisms and lenses, the [[diffraction]] of light by closely spaced sheets of glass, and the behaviour of color mixtures with spectral lights or [[pigment]] powders. ''Opticks'' was Newton's second major work on [[physical science]] and it is considered one of the three major works on [[optics]] during the [[Scientific Revolution]] (alongside [[Johannes Kepler]]'s ''Astronomiae Pars Optica'' and [[Christiaan Huygens]]' ''[[Treatise on Light]]''). ==Overview== The publication of ''Opticks'' represented a major contribution to science, different from but in some ways rivalling the ''[[Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica|Principia]]'', yet Isaac Newton's name did not appear on the cover page of the first edition. ''Opticks'' is largely a record of experiments and the [[Deductive reasoning|deduction]]s made from them, covering a wide range of topics in what was later to be known as [[physical optics]].<ref name=Opticks/> That is, this work is not a [[geometry|geometric]] discussion of [[catoptrics]] or [[dioptrics]], the traditional subjects of [[Reflection (physics)|reflection]] of light by [[mirror]]s of different shapes and the exploration of how light is "bent" as it passes from one [[medium (optics)|medium]], such as air, into another, such as water or glass. Rather, the ''Opticks'' is a study of the nature of light and colour and the various phenomena of [[diffraction]], which Newton called the "inflexion" of light. Newton sets forth in full his experiments, first reported to the [[Royal Society of London]] in 1672,<ref>{{cite web|last=Newton|first=Isaac|title=Hydrostatics, Optics, Sound and Heat|url=http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03970/|access-date=10 January 2012}}</ref> on [[Dispersion (optics)|dispersion]], or the separation of light into a [[spectrum]] of its component colours. He demonstrates how the appearance of color arises from selective [[Absorption (electromagnetic radiation)|absorption]], reflection, or [[Transmittance|transmission]] of the various component parts of the incident light. The major significance of Newton's work is that it overturned the dogma, attributed to [[Aristotle]] or [[Theophrastus]] and accepted by scholars in Newton's time, that "pure" light (such as the light attributed to the Sun) is fundamentally white or colourless, and is altered into color by mixture with darkness caused by interactions with matter. Newton showed the opposite was true: light is composed of different spectral hues (he describes seven – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet), and all colours, including white, are formed by various mixtures of these hues. He demonstrates that color arises from a physical property of light – each hue is refracted at a characteristic angle by a prism or lens – but he clearly states that color is a sensation within the mind and not an inherent property of material objects or of light itself. For example, he demonstrates that a red violet (magenta) color can be mixed by overlapping the red and violet ends of two spectra, although this color does not appear in the spectrum and therefore is not a "color of light". By connecting the red and violet ends of the spectrum, he organised all colours as a [[color circle]] that both quantitatively predicts color mixtures and qualitatively describes the perceived similarity among hues. Newton's contribution to prismatic dispersion was the first to outline multiple-prism arrays. Multiple-prism configurations, as beam expanders, became central to the design of the tunable laser more than 275 years later and set the stage for the development of the [[multiple-prism dispersion theory]].<ref>[[F. J. Duarte]] and J. A. Piper, Dispersion theory of multiple-prism beam expanders for pulsed dye lasers, ''Opt. Commun.'' '''43''', 303–307 (1982).</ref><ref>P. Rowlands, ''Newton and Modern Physics'' (World Scientific, London, 2017).</ref> ==Comparison to the ''Principia''== [[File:Opticks, Science Museum, London.jpg|thumb|right|1704 first edition of Opticks in the [[Science Museum, London]].]] ''Opticks'' differs in many respects from the ''Principia''. It was first published in English rather than in the [[Latin]]<ref name="l207">{{cite book | last1=Newton | first1=Isaac | last2=Shapiro | first2=Alan E. | title=The optical papers of Isaac Newton | publisher=Cambridge university press | publication-place=Cambridge New York | date=2021 | isbn=978-0-521-30218-0 | page=xv}}</ref> used by European philosophers, contributing to the development of a vernacular science literature. The books were a model of popular science exposition: although Newton's English is somewhat dated—he shows a fondness for lengthy sentences with much embedded qualifications—the book can still be easily understood by a modern reader. In contrast, few readers of Newton's time found the ''Principia'' accessible or even comprehensible. His formal but flexible style shows colloquialisms and metaphorical word choice.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} Unlike the ''Principia'', ''Opticks'' is not developed using the geometric convention of [[proposition]]s proved by deduction from either previous propositions, [[Lemma (mathematics)|lemma]]s or [[first principle]]s (or [[axiom]]s). Instead, axioms define the meaning of technical terms or fundamental properties of matter and light, and the stated propositions are demonstrated by means of specific, carefully described experiments. The first sentence of Book I declares "''My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments.'' In an ''[[Experimentum crucis]]'' or "critical experiment" (Book I, Part II, Theorem ii), Newton showed that the color of light corresponded to its "degree of refrangibility" (angle of refraction), and that this angle cannot be changed by additional reflection or refraction or by passing the light through a coloured filter.<ref name="u961">{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Evan | title=Colour Vision | publisher=Routledge | date=2003-09-02 | isbn=978-1-134-90080-0 | page=6}}</ref> The work is a ''[[vade mecum]]'' of the experimenter's art, displaying in many examples how to use observation to propose factual generalisations about the physical world and then exclude competing explanations by specific experimental tests. Unlike the ''Principia'', which vowed ''Non fingo hypotheses'' or "I make no hypotheses" outside the deductive method, the ''Opticks'' develops conjectures about light that go beyond the experimental evidence: for example, that the physical behaviour of light was due its [[Corpuscular theory of light|"corpuscular" nature as small particles]], or that perceived colours were harmonically proportioned like the tones of a diatonic musical scale. ==Queries== [[File:Queries title page.jpg|300px|thumb|Book III to the 1730 edition of ''Opticks'' containing queries 1 to 4.]] Newton originally considered to write four books, but he dropped the last book on [[action at a distance]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=James |first=Peter J. |date=1985 |title=Stephen Hales' "Statical Way" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23328812 |journal=History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=287–299|jstor=23328812 |pmid=3909194 }}</ref> Instead he concluded ''Opticks'' a set of unanswered questions and positive assertions referred as queries in Book III. The first set of queries were brief, but the later ones became short essays, filling many pages. In the first edition, these were sixteen such queries;<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Buchwald |first1=Jed Z. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ppv5h4sgAYwC&dq=Stephen+Hales+queries+newton&pg=PA22 |title=Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy |last2=Cohen |first2=I. Bernard |date=2001 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-52425-4 |language=en}}</ref> that number was increased to 23 in the [[Latin]] edition, published in 1706,<ref name=":0" /> and then in the revised English edition, published in 1717/18. In the fourth edition of 1730, there were 31 queries. These queries, especially the later ones, deal with a wide range of physical phenomena that go beyond the topic of optics. The queries concern the nature and transmission of [[heat]]; the possible cause of gravity; [[electricity|electrical]] phenomena; the nature of [[chemical reaction|chemical action]]; the way in which God created matter; the proper way to do science; and even the [[ethics|ethical]] conduct of human beings.<ref name=":1" /> These queries are not really questions in the ordinary sense. These queries are almost all posed in the negative, as [[rhetorical question]]s.<ref name=":1" /> That is, Newton does not ask whether light "is" or "may be" a "body." Rather, he declares: "Is not Light a Body?" [[Stephen Hales]], a firm Newtonian of the early eighteenth century, declared that this was Newton's way of explaining "by ''Quaere''."<ref name=":1" /> The first query reads: "Do not Bodies act upon Light at a distance, and by their action bend its Rays; and is not this action (''caeteris paribus'') strongest at the least distance?" suspecting on the effect of gravity on the trajectory of light rays.<ref name=":2" /> This query predates the prediction of [[Gravitational lens|gravitational lensing]] by [[Albert Einstein]]'s [[general relativity]] by two centuries and later confirmed by [[Eddington experiment]] in 1919.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last1=Schneider |first1=P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XJ3zCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |title=Gravitational Lenses |last2=Ehlers |first2=J. |last3=Falco |first3=E. E. |date=2013-06-29 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-662-03758-4 |pages=1 |language=en}}</ref> The first part of query 30 reads "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another" thereby anticipating [[Mass–energy equivalence|mass-energy equivalence]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Simmons |first=George Finlay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VqWKDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA184 |title=Differential Equations with Applications and Historical Notes |date=2022 |publisher=CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group |isbn=978-1-4987-0259-1 |edition=3rd |series= |location= |pages=184 |language=en}}</ref> Query 6 of the book reads "Do not black Bodies conceive heat more easily from Light than those of other Colours do, by reason that the Light falling on them is not reflected outwards, but enters into the Bodies, and is often reflected and refracted within them, until it be stifled and lost?", thereby introducing the concept of a [[black body]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bochner |first=Salomon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=naH_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA347 |title=Role of Mathematics in the Rise of Science |date=1981 |publisher=Princeton Univ. Pr |isbn=978-0-691-08028-4 |edition= |location=Princeton, NJ |pages=221, 347 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rowlands |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u0NBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 |title=Newton - Innovation And Controversy |publisher=[[World Scientific Publishing]] |year=2017 |isbn=9781786344045 |pages=69 |language=en}}</ref> The last query (number 31) wonders if a corpuscular theory could explain how different substances react more to certain substances than to others, in particular how [[aqua fortis]] (nitric acid) reacts more with [[calamine]] that with [[iron]]. This 31st query has been often been linked to the origin of the concept of [[chemical affinity|affinity]] in chemical reactions. Various 18th century historians and chemists like [[William Cullen]] and [[Torbern Bergman]], credited Newton for the development affinity tables.<ref name=alchemy>{{Cite book |last=Newman |first=William R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NXGYDwAAQBAJ&dq=newton+query+31+affinity&pg=PA472 |title=Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature's "Secret Fire" |date=2018-12-11 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-17487-7 |language=en}}</ref>{{Efn|[[Étienne François Geoffroy]] is credited for the first affinity table in 1718, but his relation to Newton or knowledge of the 31st query is unclear.<ref name=alchemy/>}} ==Reception== The ''Opticks'' was widely read and debated in England and on the Continent. The early presentation of the work to the Royal Society stimulated a bitter dispute between Newton and [[Robert Hooke]] over the [[Corpuscular theory of light|"corpuscular" or particle theory of light]], which prompted Newton to postpone publication of the work until after Hooke's death in 1703. On the Continent, and in France in particular, both the ''Principia'' and the ''Opticks'' were initially rejected by many natural philosophers, who continued to defend Cartesian natural philosophy and the Aristotelian version of color, and claimed to find Newton's prism experiments difficult to replicate. Indeed, the Aristotelian theory of the fundamental nature of white light was defended into the 19th century, for example by the German writer [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] in his 1810 ''[[Theory of Colours]]'' ({{langx|de|Zur Farbenlehre}}). Newtonian science became a central issue in the assault waged by the ''[[philosophes]]'' in the [[Age of Enlightenment]] against a [[natural philosophy]] based on the authority of ancient Greek or Roman naturalists or on deductive reasoning from first principles (the method advocated by French philosopher [[René Descartes]]), rather than on the application of mathematical reasoning to experience or experiment. [[Voltaire]] popularised Newtonian science, including the content of both the ''Principia'' and the ''Opticks'', in his ''Elements de la philosophie de Newton'' (1738), and after about 1750 the combination of the experimental methods exemplified by the ''Opticks'' and the mathematical methods exemplified by the ''Principia'' were established as a unified and comprehensive model of [[Newtonianism|Newtonian]] science. Some of the primary adepts in this new philosophy were such prominent figures as [[Benjamin Franklin]], [[Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier]], and [[James Black (scientist)|James Black]]. Subsequent to Newton, much has been amended. [[Thomas Young (scientist)|Thomas Young]] and [[Augustin-Jean Fresnel]] showed that the wave theory [[Christiaan Huygens]] described in his ''[[Treatise on Light]]'' (1690) could prove that colour is the visible manifestation of light's wavelength. Science also slowly came to recognize the difference between perception of colour and mathematisable optics. The German poet Goethe, with his epic diatribe ''Theory of Colours'', could not shake the Newtonian foundation – but "one hole Goethe did find in Newton's armour.. Newton had committed himself to the doctrine that refraction without colour was impossible. He therefore thought that the object-glasses of telescopes must for ever remain imperfect, achromatism and refraction being incompatible. This inference was proved by [[John Dollond| Dollond]] to be wrong." ([[John Tyndall]], 1880<ref>Popular Science Monthly/Volume 17/July 1880)http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_17/July_1880/Goethe's_Farbenlehre:_Theory_of_Colors_II</ref>) ==See also== * [[Color theory]] * [[Luminiferous aether]] * [[Prism (optics)]] * ''[[Theory of Colours]]'' * ''[[Book of Optics]]'' (Ibn al-Haytham) * ''[[Elements of the Philosophy of Newton]]'' (Voltaire) * [[Multiple-prism dispersion theory]] == Notes == {{Notelist}} == References == {{Reflist}} ==External links== {{wikisource|Opticks|''Opticks''}} {{commons category|Opticks (book)|''Opticks''}} Full and free online editions of Newton's ''Opticks'' * [http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/nwtopt/index.html Rarebookroom, First edition] * [https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/titleinfo/3266497 ETH-Bibliothek, First edition] * [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3362k Gallica, First edition] * [https://archive.org/details/opticksoratreat00newtgoog Internet Archive, Fourth edition] * [[gutenberg:33504|Project Gutenberg digitized text & images of the Fourth Edition]] * [http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03970/ Cambridge University Digital Library, Papers on Hydrostatics, Optics, Sound and Heat] – Manuscript papers by Isaac Newton containing draft of ''Opticks'' * {{librivox book | title=Opticks | author=Sir Isaac NEWTON}} {{Isaac Newton}} {{Authority control}} [[Category:1704 non-fiction books]] [[Category:1704 in science]] [[Category:English non-fiction literature]] [[Category:Books by Isaac Newton]] [[Category:History of optics]] [[Category:Mathematics books]] [[Category:Physics books]] [[Category:Treatises]] [[Category:Light]]
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