Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 4:06 pm Post subject: Newton's View of the World
What is the evidence that light is a particle? A wave?
What is different about Faraday’s and Maxwell’s approach to science compared to that of Newton?
Post your thoughts about how the work of each scientist might help in answering the project question:
“The search for an answer to the question “what is light?” profoundly changed the discipline of science”. Yes? No? Why?
The search for 'what is light' was important to science and led to several different theories and discoveries. However, I don't think it significantly changed the discipline of science- how it was viewed, studied, or presented.
The reading lists several important discoveries, made by men asking 'what is light.' Newton applied the scientific method to his studies of white light. He categorized the color spectrum into 7 colors - though he based it off of a mystical number- and also theorized that white light is a mixture of the colors of the rainbow. (pg. 103) Grimaldi's study of concentrating light led him to name diffraction. (pg. 105) Young discovered how the eye works through its muscular lenses, investigated the interference of light, and that each color of light had a corresponding wavelength. (pg. 106) Farraday explained light through his discovery of the vibrations of electical lines of force. (pg. 109) Maxwell found four equations to describe Farraday's work in 1864. (pg. 110).
I don't have a question yet. I will post later when I answer one.
Newton observed how light is changed (refracted) when it moves through certain mediums. From this he concluded that light is made of particles, and their speed determines the color that we see. There were flaws with this, as it required light to more faster the denser the medium was, when it in fact moves more slowly. Thus is was concluded that light must in fact be a wave. There was of course other evidence: light behaved quite similarly to sound for one. But the real kick was that light does no travel in perfectly straight lines. Diffraction is an effect that could only have been caused by a wave of light, not a particle.
Newton declared that one must first enquire into the properties of thing by establishing fact with experiments, and then hypothesize and explain. faraday and Maxwell seemed to begin with hypotheses, and then sometimes end up somewhere else.
Newton's impact seems apparent in how his work with light lead to the development of early scientific method, as well as the concept of universal workings and similarities. Faraday's work lead to the complete reimagining of the world (or at least started the process) in terms of lines (fields) or force and how we view matter. And in hindsight, viewing matter as bunched of force seems a precursor to the laws of relativity. Maxwell continued this work of explanation of universal connections, and his work most certainly paved the way for our more modern theories. They changed the way we look at the world, and did this through their study of light.
Light is proved to be a wave first by Grimaldi after observing a beam of light passing throught holes. He observed the spot of light was slightly bigger after it passed through the hole, and therefore determined that the light did not move in a straight line. In the late 1790s Young did a series of experiments that proved Grimaldi’s light-wave theory, and more importantly, found applied to Newton’s own data.
The idea of light as a particle was first proposed by Euler in 1746 when he made an analogy between the vibrations of light and the vibrations of sounds waves (p.106). But it wasn’t accepted at the time since it contradicted Newton’s certain views (which makes me think Newton was probably like a second Aristotle in the way that almost everyone thought he was right and whoever didn’t was wrong). Then it was finally proved after the revelation of the relation between electricity and magnetism.
Newton started experimenting with an idea (a possible answer) in mind. By observing he ended up having another idea and did more to testify it. His methodology is also praised and used in modern days as a standard format for scientific experiments. Faraday started with a question of the unanswered phenomenon and used experiments to arrive at his theory. So I guess they were similar in the sense that they both used experiments, although one used it as a tool and another one used it as an approach. Maxwell, however, relied a lot on his imagination to come up with theories and only used experiments to prove them.
The scientists in this reading all proved the statement to be true. Although they did contradict each other from time to time, like what Newton said about standing on giants shoulders, they based their theories on previous ones and together pushed science forward.
The search for "what is light" changed the discipline of science. After Newton's theory of light was criticized by Robert Hooke, Newton "provided an insight into his method of working" (pg. 104). This method would eventually become the scientific method used today. Newton wrote that one must first ask a question, then conduct experiments based around it, and using that information make a proven conclusion. Newton's method made clear that if a hypothesis did not agree with the experimental results, then the hypothesis was incorrect. This revolutionized the way that science was conducted.
Faraday's findings and Maxwell's equations about light also changed Science. He believed that many phenomena in the world could be described by the same set of equations with the same constants. For instance, electricity was described by the same equation as "such diverse things as heat in a solid or the flow of a liquid" (pg. 111). This changed how the world was viewed; laws and truths about the universe and nature could now be completely described by mathematical equations. It was now possible to calculate each force and how they effected the physical world.
Question: After the double slit experiment, why didn't Young conclude that light had properties of both waves and particles?
Yes! I entirely agree with the post above mine. While other people rightly mentioned what Newton’s theories said, did ect. the real importance lies in the fast that he changed a way of thinking. He helped philosophy evolve from just the thinking and theorizing as the more ancients did (Aristotle) to more test based work. As was mentioned his creation of what Pardies mentions as the “scientific method” (inquiry, experiment, hypothesis and then explanation) (104) is what set us on track to the guidelines of the discipline of science we have today.
Another line of thinking that I think Newton contributed which changed the discipline of science was that he thought “the Universe obyes precise rules, or laws… behavior of everything in the universe is preidictable” most importantly “ the fact that relatively simple laws intelligible to human brains are all that is required to understand what makes the Universe tick”(105). I think this is also a really important contribution of thought because if we look at the views before then, where people were thinking of the world as so complex and hard to understand, and many philosophers made theories about aspects of the world, but then would give up if they could not explain something and like in our previous reading, say that the moon had shapes in it and wasn’t perfect because “something was in the air”. Newton’s train of thinking threw this out the window. He basically made a declaration that everything could be understood and he tried to do just that, understand everything. We can see the importance of this thinking because without it many people after Newton may just have given up and said its just too complex, but even today when things get to the infinitesimal level people keep pushing the boundries and exploring knowledge. In my opinion I think that this is thanks to Newton. Not to say that someone else wouldn’t have come up with this and started this way of thinking , but he did, so yes he and his light research profoundly changed science.
“The search for an answer to the question “what is light?” profoundly changed the discipline of science”. Yes? No? Why?
I believe that the search for what is light definitely changed the discipline of science, well I think because I am still a little confused about science, but I think for now I will say yes it did (sorry that was so confusing.) The main reason why I think it did was not only because of the shocking truth Newton discovered but also how it influenced his work throughout the rest of his life. The one quote that really made this clear for me was, "It was a revolutionary idea, both because it overturned a basic tenet of Aristotelian philosophy and because it rested upon the secure foundation of experiment. But Newton did not hurry to tell the world of his discovery. Instead, the insight into the nature of light that he gained in 1665 led him to try a new approach to telescope making" (103.) I think it was also interesting that he did not tell despite the reaction he would have gotten, but he used it to his advantage because no one else at the time (or so I assume) had the same information of light that he did.
It was also interesting to see how religion has been a constant theme throughout almost all of the readings we have had. Not how religion has affected their research but how religion can relate to everything they were doing, such as how light was not pure, but it could be corrupted. Also how they realized light was no longer a mystic idea.
But now I am back to the idea that I am not sure if it actually changed the discipline of science, but I do agree that is was an extraordinary discovery that Newton made that led to an amazing advancement in telescopes.
the discpline of science was definitely changed by the study of what light is. The fact that people were even beginning to look at what light actually is makes an impact on its own, whether or not the question is answered, everything brings the world one step closer to answering more questions. Newton's impact on the scientific world after beginning to study light was clearly a strong one, as it is still relevant in the world today. Newton's work at the time was what started, and led up to, scientific methods which are used today. While going on with his studies, Newton also led to the question of whether or not light was a particle or a wave, creating a whole new path to follow towards answers about light, bringing new questions, ideas, and answers into the scientific world.
From my reading of the text I have no doubt that the quest to answer what light is permanently changed the discipline of science. One specific areas was Newton's implementation of a methodology more closely related to contemporary science, with a combination and recurring cycle of hypothesis and experimentation, with the aim of revising our understanding into a functional theory. As well, "... Newton (along with Huygen and their contemporaries) established the first scientific paradigm, or model, of reality. This showed that the Universe obeys precise rules, or laws, and that events as different as the motion of the planets around the Sun and the bending of a light beam can be explained by the application of these rules, rather than by the whims of capricious gods" (46). This logical, regular, and in many ways secular view of the Universe laid the framework for modern scientific work in the fields of physics. (Also it had philosophical/ moral implications in terms of the presence of God vs. natural laws clock with/without clockmaker etc.) I don't believe this "Clockwork Universe" view was truly shaken until the 20th century with our developing understanding of special relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
Since people have already analysed their contributions in specific terms, I guest I'll add onto these through a broader view.
I would summarize that “The search for an answer to the question “what is light?” profoundly changed the discipline of science” in the following aspects:
-methodology
As Zoey and other people have nicely pointed out, the method they approached science was fundamentally different and way more meticulous. Unlike old methods which proposed a theory and expect the reality to fit with it, these modern scientists encouraged to employ the combination of hypothesis, observation and experiment, (102) proceeding more slowly to hypotheses after diligently inquire into the properties and only attempting to explain the properties in hypothesis instead of determining them.(104) In addition to the more scrupulous method of experimenting, they started to question WHY and HOW SO aside from questioning HOW.
-subject matter
As scientists were looking for an answer to "what is light", their focus is no longer something in life that we can easily observe and figure out the structure/laws of it. They were no longer looking at nature that's around us, but some rather abstract idea that's hard to test. I think by studying this rather counter-intuitive and ungraspable subject matter of "light", these scientists contributed to further study of similar seemingly ungraspable and abstract subjects such as the microscopic world.
-views on looking at science
A very influential shift of idea I see in here is that we started to realize our understanding of science could only be progressing, rather than understanding it right on the spot. (this is different from how Darwin challenged the conventional views of species: all the attempts to understand the light in this reading are scientific, rather than some "whims of capricious gods") To use Newton's words, by standing on giant's shoulder, each scientists were able to approach the truth more by the accumulation of knowledge. (This puts my definition of Science into a resemblance of History, which I found really interesting: now the quest towards truth/the precise rule of reality in both disciplines is an ever-progressing one)
Also there is a very interesting way of doing science that I noticed in these scientists, that they started to expect the laws of science to work in reversible ways. By placing an upside down triangular wedge behind the first prism, Newton discovered that rainbow can be reversed by to the state of purity. (103) And Faraday also reasoned that if electricity could generate magnetism, then magnetism ought to be able to generate electricity too. (108) This way of reasoning through reverse thinking is something I haven't seen in previous scientists and I think this is also a major element of methodology of modern science.
Last edited by mijiawang on Thu Jan 24, 2013 10:24 pm; edited 2 times in total
The most important way that the search for the answer to "What is light?" contributed to science is that in this search the scientific method was essentially popularized or perhaps even invented by Newton. The new emphasis on the scientific method also provided an emphasis on experimentation, and the idea that nothing is truly known until it is experimented on and proven true; this overturned the Aristotelian idea that experimentation only gets in the way of understanding, and that things should be left alone to behave in their true nature. I also agree with Zoey in that Newton introduced the belief that the universe was orderly and based on laws. I think that Aristotle was the one to introduce the concept of order and behavioral and philosophical patterns in the universe, but Newton seemed to revolutionize the concept of writing concrete laws in a scientific format.
Patrick's internet is down, so I'm passing along the good word for him:
Newton:
I found little evidence for light as a particle. One argument against light as a wave was that this argument was blasphemous, contradicting Newton was blasphemous. I suppose the main argument for light being a particle was that this was the status quo belief- Aristotle thought this was as well as Newton. This situation was similar to that of Darwin whose idea of evolution contradicted the common belief that all species had been created individually.
Arguments for light as a wave:
The double slit: when shining light through a double slitted barrier the pattern of light on the opposite wall did not for two uniform lines as it would if light were a particle but rather a pattern of interference. The experiment yielded results which could not be explained by saying light was a particle.
Hole in the wall: when light passed through a hole it formed a circle on the other wall slightly bigger than the hole, meaning the light did not travel in a perfectly straight line as particles would.
Newton conducted science through experimentation far more than Farraday and Maxwell. He believed that hypotheses should be used to explain the results of experiments but not determining the properties of things (104). Farraday had an "inspired ability to think pictorially." (109) He conducted science mainly in his head through hypothetical scenarios with little experimental backing. Maxwell used mathematical equations to support the wave light theory.
I think the pursuit of an explanation of light was influential to science because it refined the process of combining hypothesis and experimentation.
The search for "what is light" completely changed the discipline of science, The quote that Lexi picked out was the exact one I wanted to use, it shows how Newton transformed what science was. "It was a revolutionary idea, both because it overturned a basic tenet of Aristotelian philosophy and because it rested upon the secure foundation of experiment. But Newton did not hurry to tell the world of his discovery. Instead, the insight into the nature of light that he gained in 1665 led him to try a new approach to telescope making" Science went from thinking about things and philosophy into experimenting with a decisive method. Not that there weren't experiments before, but that there was a method to find the truth, a method that is almost perfect, the scientific method.
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