Abstract
The telescope and the microscope opened windows into the physical world, but left untouched the mystery that made them possible — light itself. It was left to a young Englishman, trapped at home for two years by the plague, to brush aside 3,000 years of philosophical fog and precipitate one of the fiercest disputes science would ever see.
Nature, and Nature’s laws lay hid in night.
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
Alexander Pope — Epitaph: Intended for Sir Isaac Newton
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© 2008 Brian Clegg
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Clegg, B. (2008). Seeing Further. In: Light Years. Macmillan Science. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-99581-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-99581-3_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-52725-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-99581-3
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