Preliminary Research On Newton's Optical Work And Its Influence

Isaac Newton was a world well-known English scientist who made a great contribution to optics. This thesis makes research on his optical work, and discusses the influence of his work as well. Although up to now there have been a lot of research on various aspects of Newton's optical work, there is nobody who makes a whole analysis on Newton's optical work from the aspect of the book-OPTICS, and there is nobody who makes a systematic research on the influence of Newton's optical work. On the basis of abundant materials and resources relevant to Newton's optical work and in order to understand the function and status of OPTICS better in the history of science, this thesis makes a series of analyses from the aspect of OPTICS and tries to give a general and objective description to Newton's optical work and its influence. The main work of this article is listed in the following:First, it outlines the forming time of OPTICS and analyzes the reason why the publication of OPTICS was postponed, and also summarizes the writing features of OPTICS from three aspects. The author suggests that OPTICS was written before 1694 at latest, and that the main reason for the postponement of the publication was mainly due to Newton's dissatisfaction with his own theory.Second, it reviews the contemporary scientific background, and thus probes into the optical questions discussed by Newton in this thesis. It also makes analysis on the connection of Newton's prism experiments, and describes how Newton proved these propositions by taking advantage of these experiments in the article. As well the author makes analysis and generalization on the make of Newton's reflecting telescope and Newton's...