![]() ![]() Inferior glass could invalidate or even thwart experimentation altogether. Glass figured prominently in many aspects of scientific inquiry. The prism was an elegantly simple instrument, and the quality of glass used in its manufacture was essential to the success of the experimental process. Opticks was Newton’s statement on the nature and properties of light, but the glass prism extended his discoveries to color. With it, Newton separated natural white light into the spectrum of primary visible colors, which could be refracted to differing degrees and combined again to re-form white light. The glass prism was indispensable to these experiments. Thus, at the very outset of Opticks, he makes clear to the reader that “my design in this book is not to explain the properties of light by hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by reason and experiments.” Newton’s experimental method was a new approach to science, and it helped to propel scientific investigation into the modern era. ![]() He developed a theory of light and then proved his theory through experimentation and observation. Newton conducted optical experiments for several decades before he published Opticks in 1704. Optics is the science of light and how light behaves. However, his interests also included alchemy, theology, mathematics, and the branch of physics known as optics. He is most famous, perhaps, for having formulated the universal law of gravitation, as well as the laws of motion. ![]() Isaac Newton (1642–1727) is often described as the greatest of all scientific thinkers. ![]()
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