3. The conception of polarization as the result of the vibrations being transverse; and the consequent explanation of the production of polarization, and the necessary connexion between polarization and double refraction, on mechanical principles.
4. The explanation of the phenomena of dipolarization, by means of the interference of the resolved parts of the vibrations after double refraction.
The history of each of these discoveries will be given separately to a certain extent; by which means the force of proof arising from their combination will be more apparent.
Sect. 2.—Explanation of the Periodical Colors of Thin Plates and Shadows by the Undulatory Theory.
The explanation of periodical colors by the principle of interference of vibrations, was the first step which Young made in his confirmation of the undulatory theory. In a paper on Sound and Light, dated Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 9th July, 1799, and read before the Royal Society in January following, he appears to incline strongly to the Huyghenian theory; not however offering any new facts or calculations in its favor, but pointing out the great difficulties of the Newtonian hypothesis. But in a paper read before the Royal Society, November 12, 1801, he says, “A further consideration of the colors of thin plates has converted that prepossession which I before entertained for the undulatory theory of light, into a very strong conviction of its truth and efficiency; a conviction which has since been most strikingly confirmed by an analysis of the colors of striated surfaces.” He here states the general principle of interferences in the form of a proposition. (Prop. viii.) “When two undulations from different origins coincide either perfectly or very nearly in direction, their joint effect is a combination of the motions belonging to them.” He explains, by the help of this proposition, the colors which were observed in Coventry’s [94] micrometers, in which instrument lines were drawn on glass at a distance of 1⁄500th of an inch. The interference of the undulations of the rays reflected from the two sides of these fine lines, produced periodical colors. In the same manner, he accounts for the colors of thin plates, by the interference of the light partially reflected from the two surfaces of the plates. We have [already] seen that Hooke had long before suggested the same explanation; and Young says at the end of his paper, “It was not till I had satisfied myself respecting all these phenomena, that I found in Hooke’s Micrographia a passage which might have led me earlier to a similar opinion.” He also quotes from Newton many passages which assume the existence of an ether; of which, as we have [already] seen, Newton suggests the necessity in these very phenomena, though he would apply it in combination with the emission of material light. In July, 1802, Young explained, on the same principle, some facts in indistinct vision, and other similar appearances. And in 1803,[75] he speaks more positively still. “In making,” he says, “some experiments on the fringes of colors accompanying shadows, I have found so simple and so demonstrative a proof of the general law of interference of two portions of light, which I have already endeavored to establish, that I think it right to lay before the Royal Society a short statement of the facts which appear to me to be thus decisive.” The two papers just mentioned certainly ought to have convinced all scientific men of the truth of the doctrine thus urged; for the number and exactness of the explanations is very remarkable. They include the colored fringes which are seen with the shadows of fibres; the colors produced by a dew between two pieces of glass, which, according to the theory, should appear when the thickness of the plate is six times that of thin plates, and which do so; the changes resulting from the employment of other fluids than water; the effect of inclining the plates; also the fringes and bands which accompany shadows, the phenomena observed by Grimaldi, Newton, Maraldi, and others, and hitherto never at all reduced to rule. Young observes, very justly, “whatever may be thought of the theory, we have got a simple and general law” of the phenomena. He moreover calculated the length of an undulation from the measurements of fringes of shadows, as he had done before from the colors of thin plates; and found a very close accordance of the results of the various cases with one another.
[75] Phil. Trans. Memoir, read Nov. 24.
[95] There is one difficulty, and one inaccuracy, in Young’s views at this period, which it may be proper to note. The difficulty was, that he found it necessary to suppose that light, when reflected at a rarer medium, is retarded by half an undulation. This assumption, though often urged at a later period as an argument against the theory, was fully justified as the mechanical principles of the subject were unfolded; and the necessity of it was clear to Young from the first. On the strength of this, says he, “I ventured to predict, that if the reflections were of the same kind, made at the surfaces of a thin plate, of a density intermediate between the densities of the mediums surrounding it, the central spot would be white; and I have now the pleasure of stating, that I have fully verified this prediction by interposing a drop of oil of sassafras between a prism of flint-glass and a lens of crown-glass.”
The inaccuracy of his calculations consisted in his considering the external fringe of shadows to be produced by the interference of a ray reflected from the edge of the object, with a ray which passes clear of it; instead of supposing all the parts of the wave of light to corroborate or interfere with one another. The mathematical treatment of the question on the latter hypothesis was by no means easy. Young was a mathematician of considerable power in the solution of the problems which came before him: though his methods possessed none of the analytical elegance which, in his time, had become general in France. But it does not appear that he ever solved the problem of undulations as applied to fringes, with its true conditions. He did, however, rectify his conceptions of the nature of the interference; and we may add, that the numerical error of the consequences of the defective hypothesis is not such as to prevent their confirming the undulatory theory.[76]
[76] I may mention, in addition to the applications which Young made of the principle of interferences, his Eriometer, an instrument invented for the purpose of measuring the thickness of the fibres of wood; and the explanation of the supernumerary bands of the rainbow. These explanations involve calculations founded on the length of an undulation of light, and were confirmed by experiment, as far as experiment went.
But though this theory was thus so powerfully recommended by experiment and calculation, it met with little favor in the scientific world. Perhaps this will be in some measure accounted for, when we come, in the next [chapter], to speak of the mode of its reception by [96] the supposed judges of science and letters. Its author went on laboring at the completion and application of the theory in other parts of the subject; but his extraordinary success in unravelling the complex phenomena of which we have been speaking, appears to have excited none of the notice and admiration which properly belonged to it, till Fresnel’s Memoir On Diffraction was delivered to the Institute, in October, 1815.