Abstract
LAYERS of moisture, grease, etc., condensed on solid surfaces play an important part in many phenomena, hence it may be of interest to recall an observation made by Newton, which, so far as I know, is never referred to in modern text-books. Observation XI. in “The Second Book of Opticks,” Part I. (1704), is one of Newton's many careful observations of the coloured rings seen between convex and plane surfaces of glass, and is as follows: “When the water was between the Glasses, if I pressed the upper Glass variously at its edges to make the Rings move nimbly from one place to another, a little white Spot would immediately follow the centre of them, which upon creeping in of the ambient water into that place would presently vanish. Its appearance was such as interjacent Air would have caused, and it exhibited the same Colours. But it was not Air, for where any bubbles of Air were in the water they would not vanish. The reflexion must have rather been caused by a subtiler medium, which could recede through the Glasses at the creeping in of the water.”
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MUIR, J. White Spot with Newton's Moving Water Rings. Nature 119, 781 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/119781a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/119781a0
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