Polarisation of Light

This 1874 illustrated introduction to polarised light was based on lectures by a future president of the Royal Society.

William Spottiswoode (Author)

9781108076234, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 January 2015

146 pages, 29 b/w illus. 2 colour illus.
21.6 x 14 x 0.8 cm, 0.19 kg

Before his untimely death from typhoid, William Spottiswoode (1825–83) had served as president of the London Mathematical Society, the British Association, and the Royal Society. In addition to publishing widely in mathematics and the experimental physical sciences, he restored the fortunes of his family printing firm, Eyre and Spottiswoode, the Queen's printers. An enthusiast for the popularisation of science, he lectured to large audiences at the Royal Institution, the South Kensington College of Science, and at British Association meetings. He also gave scientific talks at the school set up for the employees of his family firm. This illustrated 1874 work is based on these talks, and provides an introduction to 'this beautiful branch of optics'. Spottiswoode covers methods of polarisation, and the contemporary theory accounting for these effects. He describes various experiments, and explains how polarisation causes patterns and colours to appear in light.

Preface
1. Methods of polarisation
2. Double refraction: polariscopes
3. Chromatic polarisation: the wave theory
4. Circular polarisation
5. Circular polarisation by reflexion
6. Phenomena produced by mechanical means: unannealed glass
7. Atmospheric and other polarisation: the polar clock
8. Rings and brushes produced by crystal plates
9. Composition of colours by polarised light
Index.

Subject Areas: Optical physics [PHJ]