bbc the beauty of diagrams 3of6 newton's prism
from...http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wbn7y
series in which mathematician marcus du sautoy explores the stories behind some of the world's most
familiar scientific diagrams.
in the mid-1660s, isaac newton bought a pair of prisms at a fair near cambridge, which were to be
the basis of a series of experiments that would unlock a secret that had occupied scientists for
centuries - the nature of light itself.
to explain what he had done, newton created a diagram. it is called the crucial experiment and is a
pivotal image in scientific history, a graphic moment when the ancient world was overturned by
modern science. newton demonstrated that white light is not pure, but made up of a number of
different colours, the colours of the rainbow.
newton's ideas transformed our knowledge of what we see and how we see, and the prism and its
refracted colours became a captivating image. from fibre-optics to the cover of pink floyd's dark
side of the moon album, newton's work went on to influence centuries of science and art.
from...http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wbn7y
series in which mathematician marcus du sautoy explores the stories behind some of the world's most
familiar scientific diagrams.
in the mid-1660s, isaac newton bought a pair of prisms at a fair near cambridge, which were to be
the basis of a series of experiments that would unlock a secret that had occupied scientists for
centuries - the nature of light itself.
to explain what he had done, newton created a diagram. it is called the crucial experiment and is a
pivotal image in scientific history, a graphic moment when the ancient world was overturned by
modern science. newton demonstrated that white light is not pure, but made up of a number of
different colours, the colours of the rainbow.
newton's ideas transformed our knowledge of what we see and how we see, and the prism and its
refracted colours became a captivating image. from fibre-optics to the cover of pink floyd's dark
side of the moon album, newton's work went on to influence centuries of science and art.
