Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
the generally held view with regard to light and colour at the time
the paper was published. Thus, the originality of Newton's paper is
best apprehended by comparing his theories on light and colour with
contemporary theories (Cohen,
1978
, pp. 208-209). An illustrative
example of the contemporary viewpoints is given by the colour theory
of Hooke, a brilliant scientist on whom the Royal Society of London
relied to evaluate Newton's paper (Cohen,
1978
, pp. 110-115).
Despite the fact that Newton's discourse had been received
with much applause at the Society's meeting, Hooke's referee report,
delivered only a few days later, comparing the explanatory value of
Newton's and his own colour theory, was severely critical. Hooke
argued that his own colour theory could explain more simply not only
his own experimental results but also those presented by Newton,
and that it was useless in scientific theory construction to multiply
entities without necessity in the way Newton had done. Thus, opposed
to the basic assumption of Newton that 'white' sensation was linked
to a complex physical stimulus, the available evidence seemed to
Hooke to prove that 'white' light was nothing but primitive, simple,
uniform and transverse pulses or waves propagated through a homoge-
neous, uniform and transparent medium (the ether). Whiteness and
blackness were accordingly assumed to represent nothing but large
and small quantities of this light. Chromatic, prismatic colours, on
the other hand, were explained by the assumption that the uniform,
simple motion of white light became blended or mixed with adventi-
tious motions when it fell obliquely on a refracting medium. The
part of the light refracted least was assumed to give the impression of
red, the part refracted most blue, while all the intermediate colours
in the spectrum were thought to be determined by intermixing of the
red and blue light. Hence, all chromatic colours in the world, except
red and blue, were assumed to be caused by compound pulses made
of the red and blue primary pulses only. Finally, Hooke assumed that
the adventitious motions could be destroyed by other motions when
compounded lights were united anew. The original, simple white
light could thereby be restored.
