Opticks

…first in his 1704 book Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions, and Colours of Light. During his famed prism experiments, Newton discovered that by refracting sunlight onto a wall, white light was made of seven visible colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He then…

…become Book One of his Opticks.

…masterpiece of experimental physics, the Opticks, published in 1704, in which he showed how to examine a subject experimentally and discover the laws concealed therein. Newton showed how judicious use of hypotheses could open the way to further experimental investigation until a coherent theory was achieved. The Opticks was to…

…the experimental approach of the Opticks became models for scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries. Celestial mechanics developed in the wake of his Principia, extending its scope and refining its mathematical methods. The more qualitative, experimental, and hypothetical approach of Newton’s Opticks influenced the sciences of optics, electricity and…

…of its viewpoint from the Opticks and especially the “Queries” with which that work ends. Newton’s suggestion of a hierarchy of clusters of unalterable particles formed by virtue of the specific attractions of its component particles led directly to comparative studies of interactions and thus to the tables of affinities…

…last query in his book Opticks (1704), Newton stated:

…of light, ultimately asserting in Opticks (1704) that light consists of a stream of corpuscles, or particles. To reconcile his particle model with the known law of refraction, Newton speculated that transparent objects (such as glass) exert attractive forces on the particles, with the consequence that the speed of light…