Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Isaac Newton's contribution to science and technology
Isaac Newton's contribution to science and technology
Isaac Newton's contribution to science and technology
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the early eighteenth century, a vital question aroused in the scientific community that triggered arguments among scientists and the question was ‘what is the light made up of?’. Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientist and mathematician of all time, proposed that the light is made up of tiny particles called corpuscles. But around the same time, Newton’s corpuscular theory of light was challenged by Christian Huygens. According to Huygens, light was made up of waves and not particles (Spring and Davidson). Even though both the theories have some differences, they both are true; the light is made up of both, particles and waves.
Newton and Huygens’ theories sparked a big debate on the structure of light. They both deeply studied the light and came up with their theories. Newton’s corpuscular theory considers the prism experiment which concluded that light travels as a flow of particles proceeding in a straight line until they are refracted or diverted from a solid surface (Spring and Davidson). Contrastingly, Huygens’ wave theory stands on the fact that light does not travel in a straight line and rather, it travels in a wave-like pattern. Huygens showed that the edges of shadows are not perfectly sharp and that concludes that light must be a wave and it diffracts when it passes through an opening (Hernandez). These were the first arguments provided by Newton and Huygens in order to validate their theories. But this was not enough for the scientific community to consider one over the other as correct. Both the theories required more evidence.
Another major difference was found in their explanation of light being reflected from a smooth surface, such as mirror. According to Newton’s particle theory, when the light, as a...
... middle of paper ...
...s claimed the discovery of the answer. Due to the contribution of great scientists like Max Planck, Albert Einstein and many others, the scientific community today maintains the Wave-Particle duality theory, which states that every particle has wave type nature (Spring and Davidson). Even though both the theories have some differences, they both are true; the light is made up of both, particles and waves. Although these theories sparked debate that lasted centuries, Quantum Mechanics was born as a result of the research conducted upon proving the credibility of the theories (Spring and Davidson).
Works Cited
Hernandez, Maryann. "Wave-Particle Duality." Chemwiki. University of California, n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2013.
Spring, Kenneth R., and Michael W. Davidson. "Light: Particle or a Wave?" Molecular Expressions. Florida State University, 1 Aug. 2003. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
He had produced an unknown ray being emitted from the tube that could pass through the paper. He found that this new ray would pass through most objects, casting shadows of solid substances. He first investigated with his hand and was surprised when he saw his bones. His discovery would open up an exciting field for doctors because now it was possible to stu...
In this experiment, Newton placed a second prism 5 or 6 yards away from the first. At first, when the light passed through the prisms, his results were the same as the first experiment. However, when the prisms were moved farther away from the wall onto which the light was being projected, the light projected from the prisms became white again. When they were moved even farther, the light became colored again, but the color scale was inverted from the original scale. According to the accepted theory of light, the second prism changed the color of the light projected onto the wall. Therefore, Newton’s results once again contradicted the accepted theory of light. He also rotated the prisms to test if this would have an effect on the light, but it did not. Due to these observations, Newton concluded that light was in fact a combination of all light on the spectrum of light, not just a mixture of light and
Sir Isaac Newton, the man that helped people figure out why things move and how they move, had a very interesting life. In the beginning of his early life, he dealt with hardships, and progressed to be an extremely inspiring man later in his life. In college he had many breakthroughs with his scientific works, including the laws of physics that we still use today. His life has answered many of people’s scientific questions that are still being asked today in physics’ classrooms all around the world. His discoveries have helped people for over 350 years to know and understand why things move the way they move, and stop the way they stop. Newton’s works comprise of the Principia and many other important publishing’s that he started when he was just in college. Newton’s life was full of discoveries, from his life as a minor to the years later in his life when he became an important individual in the government and changed the world, as we know it today.
Throughout Albert Einstein’s lifetime he accomplished many amazing things that have an effect on people today. For example, in 1905, “often called as Einstein’s “miracle year”, he published four papers in the Annalen der Physik, each of which would alter the course of modern physics” (Michio,Kaku 13). Throughout Einstein’s four books, he “applied the quantum theory to light in order to explain the photoelectric effect, offered the first experimental proof of the existence of atoms, laid out the mathematical theory of special relativity, and proved the first mechanism to explain the energy source of the Sun and other stars”(13). Throughout 1905-1915 Einstein began to realize that his theory for relativity was flawed, because “it made no mention of gravitation or acceleration” (19). “In November of 1915, Einstein finally completed the general theory of reality” (20); “in 1921 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics” (Belanger, Craig. 1).
The author tells of how waves are effected by quantum mechanic. He also discusses the fact that electromagnetic radiation, or photons, are actually particles and waves. He continues to discuss how matter particles are also matter, but because of their h bar, is so small, the effects are not seen. Green concludes the quantum mechanics discussion by talking about the uncertainty principle.Chapter 5: The need for a New Theory: General Relativity vs.
During the years of 1665 and 1667 he worked out the essentials of calculus, he hit upon the crucially important optical law and most significantly grasped the principle o...
In 1907, Einstein used Planck’s hypothesis of quantization to explain why the temperature of a solid changed by different amounts if you put the same amount of heat into the material. Since the early 1800’s, the science of spectroscopy had shown that different elements emit and absorb specific colors of light called “spectral lines.” In 1888, Johannes Rydberg derived an equation that described the spectral lines emitted by hydrogen, though nobody could explain why the equation worked. This changed in 1913 when Danish physicist Niel Bohr applied Planck’s hypothesis of quantization to Ernest Rutherford’s 1911 “planetary” model of the atom, which affirmed that electrons orbited the nucleus the same way that planets orbit the sun. Bohr offered an explanation for why electrical attraction does not make the electrons spiral into the nucleus. He said that electrons in atoms can change their energy only by absorbing or emitting quanta. When an electron absorbs a quantum it moves quickly to orbit farther from nucleus. When an electron emits a quantum the electron jumps to a closer
In 1905 Einstein published the Annus Mirabilis papers. These papers explained each of his four main theories; the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, Special Relativity and Matter energy-equivalence. These four works created the foundation for modern day physics and brought a new view to space, time and matter. Brownian motion is the random movement of small particles in either a gas or a liquid caused by collisions with the particles around them. Albert Einstein came up with mathematical equations that allowed him to determine the exact size of atoms. With these equations Einstein essentially provided the first substantial evidence that atoms actually do exist. Einstein’s second paper was on the photoelectric effect. Until Einstein, the photoelectric effect went unsolved. Einstein concluded that when a photon hits a metal surface, the photoelectrons on the metals surface are emitted as certain light frequencies. Thus proving that light has quanta meaning it has packets of energy. This has brought huge technological advancements and has a lot to do with many things that surround us today. Old television used video camera tubes that required the photoelectric effect to charge the screen and transform the image...
The maximum speeds of birds in nature are regulated by air. No matter what direction a bird flies, it always has the same maximum speed. Newton had proposed something similar for light, which he referred to as the aether. He theorized that it was omnip...
Newton was also involved with telescopes. After his growing interest with light bending, he applied his knowledge of the reflecting and refracting properties of light and invented the first reflective telescopes. Newton's reflective telescopes vastly improve the clarity of images as well as escaping from chromatic abberration. In order to fully understand the concepts and ideas of how a telescopes work, some knowledge of simple optics are required.
Masters, Barry R. "Albert Einstein and the Nature of Light." 2010. Optics and Photonics News. The Optical Society. Article. 31 March 2014. .
Spring, K. R., & Davidson, M. W. (2016, 05 17). Light: Particle or a Wave? Retrieved from Physics of Light and Color: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/lightandcolor/particleorwave.html
During the seventeenth century, the modern science of physics started to emerge and become a widespread tool used around the world. Many prominent people contributed to the build up of this fascinating field and managed to generally define it as the science of matter and energy and their interactions. However, as we know, physics is much more than that. It explains the world around us in every form imaginable. The study of physics is a fundamental science that helps the advancing knowledge of the natural world, technology and aids in the other sciences and in our economy. Without the field of physics, the world today would be a complete mystery, everything would be different because of the significance physics has on our life as individuals and as a society.
According to the de Broglie relation and Bragg's law, a beam of 54 eV had a wavelength of 0.167 nm. The experimental outcome was 0.165 nm via the grating equation, which closely matched the predictions. Davisson and Germer's accidental discovery of the diffraction of electrons was the first direct evidence confirming de Broglie's hypothesis that particles can have wave properties as well.
For instance, throughout the nineteenth century, it was correctly believed that light was a wave. If light were a wave like all other waves, it must have a medium through which to propagate through. This medium was called the ether, a substance which was everywhere throughout the universe. If this hypothesis were true one would be able to calculate the velocity of the Earth through the ether. Many experiments were conducted to determine this velocity the most famous one being the Michelson-Morley experiment.