M1 L3 Flashcards
1st who sought to explain the nature of light and their argumentation was intimately related to the problem of explaining vision
Greek Philosophers
1st to state a number of important properties about light that are still commonly used, including the rectilinear propagation of light rays and law of reflection
Euclid (300 BC)
Light follows the shortest path
Hero’s Principle
Origin of Law of Refraction
Ptolemy (170 A.D.)
Essential basis of geometrical optics
Euclid + Hero’s + Ptolemy
Sight is restricted to visual cones or pyramids with the apex located pyramids with the apex located at the eye
Geometric Optics
Never succeed in discovering the mechanism involved in vision because they are more focused on geometrical principles
Ancient Greeks
Described the anatomy of the eye on the basis of dissections.
Concluded that vision was produced at the surface of the crystalline lens
“After-images produced after looking for a while at bright objects.”
“Pain felt when looking directly at a bright object.”
Alhazen (1000 A.D.)
Made lenses used for spectacles to correct poor sight caused by presbyopia
Do not explain how it functions and was considered as magical curiosities of no use for serious studies
13th Century Italian Glassworkers
Study the transmission of rays through lenses with geometrical optics
Describe the functions of spectacle lenses
Explains the image that was formed on the retina
Johannes Kepler
Compared the eye to a camera obscura
Leonardo Da Vinci
Combined 2 lenses to facilitate magnified viewing distant objects
16th Century Dutch Spectacle-Makers
1st to acknowledge the scientific importance of telescope and begin produce his own
Galileo Galilei
Light consist of material particles
Democritus + Newton (1704) + Descartes
Mentioned that color could manifest of different angular velocities of rotation of the light particles and that color is a property inherent to the light itself.
Used mechanical analogy of light by assuming that it consist of tiny particles.
Rene Descartes
Made the Snell’s law of refraction
Willbrord Snell
Found that spectral colors can be extracted from the white light using a prism.
Believed that light consist of minute particles was the cause of refraction phenomenon
Isaac Newton
Speculated whether light propagate in wave-like fashion but eventually denied the possibility.
Examined transmission of light by small hole and its passing of tiny obstacles.
Francesco M. Grimaldi
Contributed to the theory of light waves and in analogy with sounds
Leonhard Eucler
Supports the wave theory of light and considered it as small spherical waves that forms a wave front that acts as a source for new secondary waves
Christiaan Huygens
Explained the interference phenomena and accommodation of the eye.
Found that accommodation was caused by the changes in shape of the eye lens.
Suggested RGBV as the eyes 3 kinds of color responses.
Thomas Young
Made a experiment on diffraction of light similar to Grimaldi and Newton
Augustin-Jean Fresnel
Suggested that light waves must be electromagnetic in nature
James Clerk Maxwell
Assume that light is consisted of tiny energy quanta.
Mentioned that light interacts with materials as if it consists of particles each carrying a tiny lump of energy.
Albert Einstein
