Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T22:24:42.093Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Waves and Scientific Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Peter Achinstein
Peter Achinstein*
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1802 a youthful Thomas Young, British physician and scientist, had the audacity to resuscitate the wave theory of light (Young 1802). For this he was excoriated by Henry Brougham (1803) in the Edinburgh Review. Brougham, a defender of the Newtonian particle theory, asserted that Young's paper was “destitute of every species of merit” because it was not based on inductions from observations but involved simply the formulation of hypotheses to explain various optical phenomena.

Type
Part VII. Mill, Whewell, and the Wave-Particle Debate
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1992 , 1993 , pp. 192 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achinstein, P. (1983), The Nature of Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Achinstein, P. (1991), Particles and Waves. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brougham, H. (1803), Edinburgh Review 1: 45lff.Google Scholar
Cantor, G. (1975), “The Reception of the Wave Theory of Light in Britain,” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 6: 109-132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cantor, G. (1983), Optics after Newton. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Crew, H. (ed.) (1900), The Wave Theory of Light. New York: American Book Co.Google Scholar
Fresnel, A. (1816), “Memoir on the Diffraction of Light.,” reprinted in Crew (1900), 79-144.Google Scholar
Hersehel, J. (1845), “Light,” Encyclopedia Metropolilana.Google Scholar
Hersehel, J. (1987), A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Laudan, L. (1981), “The Medium and its Message,” in Conceptions of the Ether, G. Cantor and M. Hodge (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, H. (1834), “Report on the Progress and Present State of Physical Optics,” Reports of the British Associationfor the Advancement of Science, 297ff.Google Scholar
Lloyd, H. (1877), Miscellaneous Papers. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.Google Scholar
Mill, J. (1959), A System of Logic. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.Google Scholar
Whewell, W. (1967), The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. 2. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation.Google Scholar
Young, T. (1802), “On the Theory of Light and Colors,” reprinted in Crew (1900), 45-61.Google Scholar
Young, T. (1845), A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts. London: Taylor and Walton.Google Scholar