Fits, Passions, and Paroxysms: Physics, Method, and Chemistry and Newton's Theories of Colored Bodies and Fits of Easy Reflection

9780521405072

0521405076

Building on his pioneering investigation of the colors of thin films, Isaac Newton developed two influential theories, one on the structure of matter explaining the colors of bodies, and the other on fits, describing the periodicity of light. Professor Alan Shapiro, editor of The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton, recounts the development of these theories based on his study of Newton's unpublished manuscripts, and analyzes their experimental foundation. He also shows the essential role that Newton's philosophy of science played in the formulation and reception of these theories. The second part of the book describes the vigorous dispute over Newton's theory of colored bodies waged during the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century by physicists and chemists. Professor Shapiro's analysis of this previously unknown dispute and the reasons for the chemists' attack on Newton's theory illuminates the nature and relation of physics and chemistry during this seminal period of their development.