附註:Dissertation.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-284) and index.
COVER -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ... 'THE PERFECT CARTESIAN' -- A history of Traité de la Lumière -- Huygens' optics -- New light on Huygens -- CHAPTER 2 1653 -- 'TRACTATUS' -- 2.1 The Tractatus of 1653 -- 2.2 Dioptrics and the telescope -- CHAPTER 3 1655-1672 -- 'DE ABERRATIONE' -- 3.1 The use of theory -- 3.2 Dealing with aberrations -- 3.3 Dioptrica in the context of Huygens' mathematical science -- CHAPTER 4 THE 'PROJET' OF 1672 -- 4.1 The nature of light and the laws of optics -- 4.2 The mathematics of strange refraction -- CHAPTER 5 1677-1679 -- WAVES OF LIGHT -- 5.1 A new theory of waves -- 5.2 Comprehensible explanations -- 5.3 A second EUPHKA -- CHAPTER 6 1690 -- TRAITÉ DE LA LUMIÈRE -- 6.1 Creating Traité de la Lumière -- 6.2 Traité de la Lumière and the advent of physical optics -- 6.3 Traité de la Lumière and Huygens' oeuvre -- CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION: LENSES & WAVES -- A seventeenth-century Archimedes -- From mathematics to mechanisms -- Huygens and Descartes -- The small Archimedes -- LIST OF FIGURES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY.
摘要:"This book discusses the development of Christiaan Huygens' wave theory, reconstructing the winding road that eventually led to Trade de la Lumiere. For the first time, the full range of manuscript sources is taken into account. In addition, the development of Huygens' thinking on the nature of light is put in the context of his optics as a whole, which was dominated by his lifelong pursuit of theoretical and practical dioptrics. In so doing, this book offers the first account of the development of Hygens' mathematical analysis of lenses and telescopes and its significance for the origin of the wave theory of light. Students of the history of optics, of early mathematical physics, and the Scientific Revolution, will find this book enlightening."--Jacket.
