Article ID: CBB000640056

Chymical Wonders of Light: J. Marcus Marci's Seventeenth-Century Bohemian Optics (2005)

unapi

In 1648, J. Marcus Marci of Prague anticipated two chief features of Isaac Newton's celebrated 1672 theory of light and color, namely that colors are inherent to light and that the role of the prism is to separate the rays of color by means of refraction. Furthermore, Marci argued that colors produced by a first refraction are immutable when subjected to refraction by a second prism. This paper argues that the key to Marci's achievement derived from his chymical view of light, which he tested by means of prism trials and geometrical constructions. I also suggest that Marci's unusual coupling of chymical philosophy with mathematics was a move unusual in the history of alchemy; and that his chymical understanding of light belongs to an underexplored tradition in the history of optics, which is distinct from mechanistic and Aristotelian theories of light.

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Description The article argues how Marci anticipated two chief features of Newton's theory of light by understanding light through a chemical theory.


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Authors & Contributors
Marasy, Mohsen
Towne, Dudley H.
Szulakowska, Urszula
Retucci, Fiorella
Rehm, Robin
Martins, Roberto de Andrade
Concepts
Light
Color theory
Optics
Physics
Science and art
Chemistry
Time Periods
17th century
Medieval
18th century
13th century
Renaissance
Ancient
Places
Germany
Yellow River (China)
Prague (Czechia)
Greece
Europe
China
Institutions
Ikhwān al-Ṣafā (Brethren of Purity)
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