Descartes's Theory of Light & Refraction: A Discourse on Method

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Our Price: $20.00

Year: 1987
Pages: 92
Binding Hardcover

Product Code: 0871697734

Description

A. Mark Smith (au). Contents: (I) Introduction; (II) The Basic Issues: A Historical Overview; & Descartes’s Perspectivist Sources; (III) Descartes’s Analysis of Refraction: Cartesian Light-Theory; The Analysis of Refraction; & A Critical Evaluation; (IV) The Foundations of Perspectivist Optics: Perspectivist Light-Theory; The Quantization of Light; & Comparison with Descartes’s Theory of Light; (V) The Perspectivist Analysis of Refraction: The Physical Model; The Physical “Explanation” & The Final Cause; (VI) The Perspectivist Grounds of the Cartesian Proof: The Mathematical Implications; The Cosine Relation; From Cosines to Sines; & Descartes Revisited; (VII) The Cartesian Legacy Reconsidered: Cartesian Light-Theory as a Culmination; Toward a Kinetic Theory of Light; & The Epistemological Consequences. Appendices: The Sine-Law Before Descartes; The Fermat-Descartes Controversy; Kepler, Descartes & the Anaclastic; & A Note on the Principle of Natural Economy. Illustrations.

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