Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14549

    Observations on theory of light and colours

    Date
    20 January 1676
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p258
    Dimensions
    height (page): 370mm
    width (page): 232mm
    Description
    This diagram is part of the second observation in Isaac Newton's paper on his theory of light and colours.

    The paper was read before the Royal Society on 20 January and 3 February 1676, and was subsequently incorporated into Newton's Opticks (1704).

    Copied from RBO/5/090.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 20 January 1676, ‘There was also read the beginning of Mr. Newton’s discourse, containing such observations, as conduce to further discoveries for completing his theory of light and colours, especially as to the constitution of natural bodies, on which their colours or transparency depend: in which he describes first the principal of his observations, and then considers and makes uses of them. At this time there were read the first fifteen of those observations as follows’ (Birch 3:272). The text and figures are printed in Birch 3:272-79. The remainder of the paper was read on 3 February 1676; the text and figures are printed in Birch 3:280-95.
    Related fellows
    Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727, British) , Natural philosopher
    Associated place
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