Abstract
LONDON. Royal Society, November 18.—Sir J. J. Thomson, president, in the chair.—Sir A. Schuster: The absorption and scattering of light. The paper is based on the generally accepted theory that refraction and dispersion are caused by the oscillations of electric resonators embedded in the medium through which the light passes. With homogeneous light each resonator responds with a forced oscillation, together with a motion following the laws of free oscillations, and gradually dying out. If white light falls on the medium the forced oscillation has to be replaced by an integral and other terms have to be added that are due to disturbances caused by neighbouring molecules. The equation for the displacement of an oscillator then takes the form:
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Societies and Academies. Nature 106, 456–459 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/106456a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106456a0