Abstract
II. IT will be convenient here for me to refer to some researches, not yet published, which I have made, as to the various orders of transition tints, with the view of ascertaining which of them is the most sensitive—which of them, in fact, shows the greatest change of tint for the smallest amount of rotation. Reference to the diagram on the wall displaying Newton's tints will make clear what I mean by the transition tints of the several orders. The tints obtained from quartzes of varying thicknesses may be considered as approximately identical with the tints of Newton's rings, provided we remember that the air-film which gives any particular tint in Newton's rings is about 1/300,000 part as thick as the quartz which yields the corresponding tint in the polariscope. Better far than any painted diagram, because richer and purer, are the tints now thrown upon the screen by introducing into the field a thin wedge of selenite, displaying the whole of the colours of the first three orders of Newton's scale. You will notice the successive recurrence of purple tints, both in the colours seen in the bright field, and in those seen in the dark field.
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Optical Torque1. Nature 40, 257–261 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/040257a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/040257a0