The New York coach-maker's magazine . e eye with the sensation oflight, those which are recognizable as heat, and otherswhich, though invisible and incapable of being felt, yetexist, and are active in producing chemical change. The first of these, though colorless to the eye, maybe made to convey to us the additional sensation of colorby either refraction or by reflection. When a ray orbeam of light impinges obliquely upon the bounding sur-face of a denser medium passing out of a rarer one, orvice versa, it is bent or refracted from its right-linedcourse. Thus in the vertical section of an emp
The New York coach-maker's magazine . e eye with the sensation oflight, those which are recognizable as heat, and otherswhich, though invisible and incapable of being felt, yetexist, and are active in producing chemical change. The first of these, though colorless to the eye, maybe made to convey to us the additional sensation of colorby either refraction or by reflection. When a ray orbeam of light impinges obliquely upon the bounding sur-face of a denser medium passing out of a rarer one, orvice versa, it is bent or refracted from its right-linedcourse. Thus in the vertical section of an empty rectangularbox (Fig. 1), upon which the light of the sun s, I, shinesobliquely over the top edge at t, leaving all that portionto the left of t, b, or t, b, n, in shadow, s, t and b being inone straight line marking the boundary of the cut off* sun-shine. Now, if thebox be filled up withwater to v, w, theboundary of the sha-dow will retreat fromb to r, and the por-tion r, m, b, will nolonger be in shadow,that is to say, the marginal beam s, t, b, will have been bent at the surfaceof the water into the line m, r, or refracted. The anglethrough which it is bent is always the same for the samemedium. But it was the glorious discovery of Newton,that when a ray of colorless light is so refracted, all itsparts are not refracted alike, i. e., through the same beam, for example, if passed through the obliquesurfaces of the glass prism (Fig. 2), is not only refracted,i. e. all bent more or less by the prism, but also dis-persed; that is to say, the beam becomes split up intoothers having different refractive angles, and on emerging
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Keywords: ., bookauthorstratton, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookyear1858
