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The Nature of Light

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François Arago

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library ((ASSL,volume 421))

Abstract

Autographed Memoir of Fresnel with the approbation of Arago, for publication by Academy of sciences. Archives de l’Académie des sciences

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These corpuscles have nothing to do with our modern photons, which have no mass.

  2. 2.

    *Huygens (1690).

  3. 3.

    *Euler (1746).

  4. 4.

    *Euler (1761) Letters XVIII and XXXI.

  5. 5.

    Young, T. (1802) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 92, p. 12–48, accessible as http://www.jstor.org/stable/107113

  6. 6.

    For an analysis of the works of Young in optics, see Mollon, J.D. (2002) Philosophical transactions A, 360, p. 807–819, accessible via http://www.jstor.org/stable/3066507

  7. 7.

    This was suspected by Newton who heard about the combination of tide waves in the region of Haiphong in Vietnam, but not extended by him to sound or light waves.

  8. 8.

    Young (1807).

  9. 9.

    Bartholin (1669).

  10. 10.

    Many details on the trials and realizations of Rochon can be found in *Journal de physique, de chimie et d’histoire naturelle (1812) 74, p. 321–340.

  11. 11.

    The works of Malus on polarization can be found in Mémoires de la Société d’Arcueil (without date) t. II p. 145–158, accessible via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mémoires_de_Physique_et_de_Chimie,_de_la_Société_d’Arcueil?uselang=fr and in Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences pour 1810, p. 105 and 112.

  12. 12.

    *Arago, F. Œuvres complètes t. 3, p. 141–142.

  13. 13.

    This is inexact and was rectified elsewhere by Arago: the polarization was only partial, and the images did not disappear completely.

  14. 14.

    *Arago, F. Œuvres complètes t. 7, p. 291–454.

  15. 15.

    The physicist Jacques Babinet (1794–1872) wrote in *Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des sciences, 11, p. 618–620: “It is when observing the colors of mica foils lit by the light of a clear sky that M. Arago discovered chromatic polarization.” The light of the blue sky is indeed polarized, but an analyzer must be placed between the foil and the eye to see the phenomenon.

  16. 16.

    For a history of this discovery see Biot in *Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences (1842) 15, p. 962–975.

  17. 17.

    For more details, see *Arago, F., Œuvres complètes t. 1 p. 107–185, and the introduction by Verdet to the Œuvres complètes d’Augustin Fresnel (Fresnel 1866, 1868, 1870).

  18. 18.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 5.

  19. 19.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 35–37. Also *Arago, F. Œuvres complètes, t. Tables, p. XLII–XLV. Original at the Archives of the Academy of sciences, file Fresnel.

  20. 20.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 38–39.

  21. 21.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 9–33. This Memoir was not published by the Academy.

  22. 22.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 79–87. See p. 86–87.

  23. 23.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 174.

  24. 24.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 41–60.

  25. 25.

    The invention of the diffraction grating is often attributed to Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826). However, its properties were first described at the end of the eighteenth century by the American astronomer David Rittenhouse (1732–1796; see Cope T.D., 1932, Journal of the Franklin Institute 214, p. 99–104). Young mentioned and explained it in 1802. Fresnel, who always cited his sources, clearly ignored these works.

  26. 26.

    *Annales de chimie et de physique 1, p. 239–281.

  27. 27.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 75.

  28. 28.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 129–170.

  29. 29.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 247–382.

  30. 30.

    It is true that the arguments of the supporters of the wave theory were not always excellent. As an example, Arago cites in his biographic notice of Fresnel (*Arago, F. Œuvres complètes t. 1, p. 107–185) some fruitless experiments to detect what we now call the radiation pressure (which really exists), and concluded that its absence was an argument against the emission theory; but he noticed, judiciously in the context of the time, that “these sorts of experiments and of arguments that can be traced back to Franklin will never lead to anything decisive.”

  31. 31.

    Young had already observed this phenomenon by looking at some observational artifacts produced by diffraction in a microscope. But this was probably not known in France.

  32. 32.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 509–522.

  33. 33.

    Fresnel (1866, 1868, 1870) t. 1, p. 609–653, see p. 629–630.

  34. 34.

    Curiously, Arago placed himself sometimes in the frame of the corpuscular theory, at least until 1842. Was this for the purpose of avoiding conflicts at the Academy when this theory did not play a crucial role in the analyses?

  35. 35.

    Whewell (1866) vol. 2, p. 101 and p. 114–115.

  36. 36.

    Cawood (1974) discusses this point in detail p. 136–149. For him, a mathematically oriented physicist like Fresnel could accept a transverse wave, which was only a model that could allow progress in the interpretation and prediction of phenomena, while for a physicist of Nature like Arago, this hypothesis would imply an unacceptable description of the Universe.

  37. 37.

    *Arago, F. Œuvres complètes t. 10, p. 132–149.

  38. 38.

    *Arago, F. Œuvres complètes t.Tables, p. CV.

  39. 39.

    Herschel (s.d), p. 450.

  40. 40.

    *Comptes Rendus (1846) 23, p. 1103–1105.

  41. 41.

    *Comptes Rendus (1849) 29, p. 514–515.

  42. 42.

    See. e.g. http://www.vct-ag.com/conical_refraction.pdf

  43. 43.

    For example in Feynman et al. (1964), chapter 31.

  44. 44.

    Journal de Physique … (nivôse an IX = 1801), vol. 52, p. 7, accessible via http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/6637#/summary

  45. 45.

    *Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences (1823) t. 6, p. LXI–LXXXI, see p. LXXV.

  46. 46.

    Gay-Lussac and Thenard (1811) t. 2, p. 205–206.

  47. 47.

    *Arago, F. Œuvres complètes t. 1, p. 295–369.

  48. 48.

    See Lequeux, J. (2009) Early Infrared Astronomy, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 12, p. 125–140, accessible freely via http://adsabs.harvard.edu

  49. 49.

    Cited by *Melloni, Comptes rendus (1835) 1, p. 503–509. But Melloni did not yet agree with Ampère’s concept.

  50. 50.

    *Melloni, Comptes rendus (1842) 15, p. 454–460.

  51. 51.

    See Tobin (2003) chapter 6, or Lequeux (2014) chapter 2.

  52. 52.

    Jamin (1858–1866), t. 2, p. 247–249.

  53. 53.

    *Arago, F. Œuvres complètes t. 10, p. 484–492.

  54. 54.

    *Arago, F. Œuvres completes t. 7, p. 530–547, see p. 540.

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  1. Paris Observatory, Paris, France

    James Lequeux

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Lequeux, J. (2016). The Nature of Light. In: François Arago. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 421. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20723-0_3

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