THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. THE NATURE OF LIGHT, WITH A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF PHYSICAL OPTICS. BY DR. EUGENE LOMMEL, PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ERLANGEN. WITH ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS AND A PLATE OF SPECTRA IN CHROMOLITHOGRAPHY. TOR LIBR NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 AND 551 BROADWAY. PREFACE. THE OBJECT of this little work is to give to a large circle of readers an answer, based on the present state of science, to the question, What is the Nature of Light? In the first fourteen Chapters the laws of reflexion, refraction, dispersion, and absorption of light are demonstrated by experiment without reference to any theory of the nature of light. This comes forward prominently for the first time in the fifteenth Chapter, in discussing Fresnel's mirror experiment, and the conclusion arrived at being in favour of the undulatory theory, it is shown that this theory is not only in accordance with all the facts hitherto known, but also affords the most salisfactory explanation of the phenomera cf double Lefraction and polarisation, both of which receive subsequent consideration. Mathematical reasonings are wholly omitted in the text; where these are required or appear to be desirable for the more thorough and complete knowledge of the phenomena described, they are given in the most MEM AOKK elementary form, and are added as an appendix to the Chapters.* Numerous wood-cuts are introduced, many of which are taken from the Atlas of Physics of Johann Müller; the majority, however, are new, as is also a chromolithographic plate of spectra. I trust that this attempt to render a branch of Physics, which at first sight seems from its delicate nature to lie somewhat beyond the grasp of the general public, intelligible, will meet with a kindly reception and consideration at their hands. ERLANGEN, July 1874. *The theory of spherical mirrors and lenses, for example, and the elementary theory of the rainbow, are added as Appendices to the Chapters in which these subjects are discussed. |