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3Chapter
It has been often a matter for surprise that Newton, throughout his whole
career, should have taken so much trouble to expose the errors of those who
attacked his views. He used even to do this when it plainly appeared that his
adversaries did not understand the subject they were discussing. A
philosopher might have said, ” I know I am right, and whether others think I
am right or not may be a matter of concern to them, but it is certainly not a
matter about which I need trouble. If after having been told the truth they
elect to remain in error, so much the worse for them; my time can be better
employed than in seeking to put such people right.” This, however, was not
Newton’s method. He spent much valuable time in overthrowing objections
which were often of a very futile description. Indeed, he suffered a great deal
of annoyance from the persistency, and in some cases one might almost say
from the rancour, of the attacks which were made upon him. Unfortunately
for himself, he did not possess that capacity for sublime indifference to what
men may say, which is often the happy possession of intellects greatly inferior
to his.
The subject of optics still continuing to engross Newton’s attention, he
followed up his researches into the structure of the sunbeam by many other
valuable investigations in connection with light. Every one has noticed the
beautiful colours manifested in a soap-bubble. Here was a subject which not
unnaturally attracted the attention of one who had expounded the colours of
the spectrum with such success. He perceived that similar hues were produced
by other thin plates of transparent material besides soap-bubbles, and his
ingenuity was sufficient to devise a method by which the thicknesses of the
different films could be measured. We can hardly, indeed, say that a like
success attended his interpretation of these phenomena to that which had been
so conspicuous in his explanation of the spectrum. It implies no
disparagement to the sublime genius of Newton to admit that the doctrines he
put forth as to the causes of the colours in the soap-bubbles can be no longer
accepted. We must remember that Newton was a pioneer in accounting for the
physical properties of light. The facts that he established are indeed
unquestionable, but the explanations which he was led to offer of some of
them are seen to be untenable in the fuller light of our present knowledge.
Had Newton done nothing beyond making his wonderful discoveries in
light, his fame would have gone down to posterity as one of the greatest of
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Buch Great Astronoms - Isaac Newton"
Great Astronoms
Isaac Newton
- Titel
- Great Astronoms
- Untertitel
- Isaac Newton
- Autor
- Robert S. Ball
- Datum
- 1907
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 22
- Schlagwörter
- Astronom, Philosopher, Englisch, English, Astronomie, Philosophie
- Kategorien
- International
- Naturwissenschaften Physik