A treatise on light and vision
Humphrey Lloyd
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, March 6, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1831 Excerpt: ...be increased in breadth, as it was before in length by the same causes, and should therefore appear square or rectangular. But the result is found to be otherwise: the image, rv, is not at all increased in breadth by the refraction of the second prism, but only becomes oblique to its former position, Rv, the upper or violet extremity, v, being translated farther from its former position than the lower or red extremity, r. Accordingly, the light which is most refracted by the first prism is again most refracted by the second; and that which is least refracted by the first is, in like manner, least refracted by the second. And since the sides of the oblique image, rv, are found to be rectilinear, as well as those of the first, Rv, it follows that every ray which is more or less refracted by the first prism, is, exactly in the same proportion, more or less refracted by the second. Further, if the image produced by the second prism be again laterally refracted by a third, and so on to any number of refractions, it is always found that the rays which are more or less refracted by the first prism are in the same proportion more or less refracted by all the rest, and this without any dilatation of the image in breadth. These rays are therefore justly considered to possess each a peculiar degree of refrangibility. (233.) The following experiment, however, may be considered as removing all doubt on this subject. Close behind the prism Bac is placed a board, pa, perforated with a small aperture, o, through which the refracted light is permitted to pass: this light is then received on a second board, T'q!, placed at a considerable distance from the first, and similarly perforated; so that a small portion of the light of the spectrum is suffered to pass through the ape...