blended, those qualified with red shall abound most in the reflected
light, and by their prevalence cause it to appear of that colour.
And for the same reason Bise, reflecting blew most copiously, shall
appear blew by the excess of those Rays in its reflected light; and
the like of other bodies. And that this is the intire and adequate
cause of their colours, is manifest, because they have no power to
change or alter the colours of any sort of Rays incident apart, but
put on all colours indifferently, with which they are inlightened.
| . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
“Reviewing what I have written, I see the discourse it self will lead to divers Experiments sufficient for its examination: And therefore I shall not trouble you further, than to describe one of those, which I have already insinuated.
“In a darkened Room make a hole in the shut of a window whose diameter may conveniently be about a third part of an inch, to admit a convenient quantity of the Suns light: And there place a clear and colourless Prisme, to refract the entring light towards the further part of the Room, which, as I said, will thereby be diffused into an oblong coloured Image. Then place a Lens of about three foot radius (suppose a broad Object-glass of a three foot Telescope), at the distance of about four or five foot from thence, through which all those colours may at once be transmitted, and made by its Refraction to convene at a further distance of about ten or twelve feet. If at that distance you intercept this light with a sheet of white paper, you will see the colours converted into whiteness again by being mingled.
“But it is requisite, that the Prisme and Lens be placed steddy, and that the paper, on which the colours are cast be moved to and fro; for, by such motion, you will not only find, at what distance the whiteness is most perfect but also see, how the colours gradually convene, and vanish into whiteness, and afterwards having crossed one another in that place where they compound Whiteness, are again dissipated and severed, and in an inverted order retain the same colours, which they had before they entered the composition. You may also see, that, if any of the Colours at the Lens be intercepted, the Whiteness will be changed into the other colours. And therefore, that the composition of whiteness be perfect, care must be taken, that none of the colours fall besides the Lens.”
He concludes his communication with the words: “This, I conceive, is enough for an Introduction to Experiments of this kind: which if any of the R. Society shall be so curious as to prosecute, I should be very glad to be informed with what success: That, if any thing seem to be defective, or to thwart this relation, I may have an opportunity of giving further direction about it, or of acknowledging my errors, if I have committed any.”
The publication of these discoveries led to a series of controversies which lasted for several years, in which Newton had to contend with the eminent English natural philosopher Robert Hooke; Lucas, mathematical professor at Liége; Linus, a physician in Liége, and many others. Some of his opponents denied the truth of his experiments, refusing to believe in the existence of the spectrum. Others criticized the experiments, saying that the length of the spectrum was never more than three and a half times the breadth, whereas Newton found it to be five times the breadth. It appears that Newton made the mistake of supposing that all prisms would give a spectrum of exactly the same length; the objections of his opponents led him to measure carefully the lengths of spectra formed by prisms of different angles and of different refractive indices; and it seems strange that he was not led thereby to the discovery of the different dispersive powers of different refractive substances.
Newton carried on the discussion with the objectors with great courtesy and patience, but the amount of pain which these perpetual discussions gave to his sensitive mind may be estimated from the fact of his writing on the 18th of November 1676 to Oldenburg:—
“I promised to send you an answer to Mr Lucas this next Tuesday, but I find I shall scarce finish what I have designed, so as to get a copy taken of it by that time, and therefore I beg your patience a week longer. I see I have made myself a slave to philosophy, but if I get free of Mr Lucas’s business, I will resolutely bid adieu to it eternally, excepting what I do for my private satisfaction, or leave to come out after me; for I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new, or to become a slave to defend it.”
It was a fortunate circumstance that these disputes did not so thoroughly damp Newton’s ardour as he at the time felt they would. He subsequently published many papers in the Philosophical Transactions on various parts of the science of optics, and, although some of his views have been found to be erroneous, and are now almost universally rejected, his investigations led to discoveries which are of permanent value. He succeeded in explaining the colour of thin and of thick plates, and the inflexion of light, and he wrote on double refraction, polarization and binocular vision. He also invented a reflecting sextant for observing the distance between the moon and the fixed stars,—the same in every essential as the instrument which is still in everyday use at sea under the name of Hadley’s quadrant. This discovery was communicated by him to Edmund Halley in 1700, but was not published, or communicated to the Royal Society, till after Newton’s death, when a description of it was found among his papers.
In March 1673 Newton took a prominent part in a dispute in the university. The public oratorship fell vacant, and a contest arose between the heads of the colleges and the members of the senate as to the mode of electing to the office. The heads claimed the right of nominating two persons, one of whom was to be elected by the senate. The senate insisted that the proper mode was by an open election. The duke of Buckingham, who was the chancellor of the university, endeavoured to effect a compromise which, he says, “I hope may for the present satisfy both sides. I propose that the heads may for this time nominate and the body comply, yet interposing (if they think fit) a protestation concerning their plea that this election may not hereafter pass for a decisive precedent in prejudice of their claim,” and, “whereas I understand that the whole university has chiefly consideration for Dr Henry Paman of St John’s and Mr Craven of Trinity College, I do recommend them both to be nominated.” The heads, however, nominated Dr Paman and Ralph Sanderson of St John’s, and the next day one hundred and twenty-one members of the senate recorded their votes for Craven and ninety-eight for Paman. On the morning of the election a protest in which Newton’s name appeared was read, and entered in the Regent House. But the vice-chancellor admitted Paman the same morning, and so ended the first contest of a non-scientific character in which Newton took part.
On the 8th of March 1673 Newton wrote to Oldenburg, the secretary of the Royal Society:
“Sir, I desire that you will procure that I may be put out from being any longer Fellow of the Royal Society: for though I honour that body, yet since I see I shall neither profit them, nor (by reason of this distance) can partake of the advantage of their assemblies, I desire to withdraw.”
Oldenburg must have replied to this by an offer to apply to the Society to excuse Newton the weekly payments, as in a letter of Newton’s to Oldenburg, dated the 23rd of June 1673, he says, “For your proffer about my quarterly payments, I thank you, but I would not have you trouble yourself to get them excused, if you have not done it already.” Nothing further seems to have been done in the matter until the 28th of January 1675, when Oldenburg informed “the Society that Mr Newton is now in such circumstances that he desires to be excused from the weekly payments.” Upon this “it was agreed to by the council that he be dispensed with, as several others are.” On the 18th of February 1675 Newton was formally admitted into the Society. The most probable explanation of the cause why Newton wished to be excused from these payments is to be found in the fact that, as he was not in holy orders, his fellowship at Trinity College would lapse in the autumn of 1675. It is true that the loss to his income which this would have caused was obviated by a patent from the crown in April 1675, allowing him as Lucasian professor to retain his fellowship without the obligation of taking holy orders. This must have relieved Newton’s mind from a great deal of anxiety about pecuniary matters, as we find him in November 1676 subscribing £40 towards the building of the new library of Trinity College.
It is supposed that it was at Woolsthorpe in the summer of 1666 that Newton’s thoughts were directed to the subject of gravity. Voltaire is the authority for the well-known anecdote about the apple. He had his information from Newton’s favourite niece Catharine Barton, who married Conduitt, a fellow of the Royal Society, and one of Newton’s intimate friends. How much truth there is in what is a plausible and a favourite story can never be known, but it is certain that tradition marked a tree as that from which the apple fell, till 1820, when, owing to decay, the tree was cut down and its wood carefully preserved.
