Abstract
IT is something of a reproach to physical science that very little has heretofore been accomplished in the matter of historical teaching. Chemistry, to its great benefit, has adopted another course, and systematic lectures on the history of the science have been a commonplace for generations. More than ever to-day, when the foundations of physics are being laid anew, is it necessary to approach our science historically, and thus to realise something of what the builders of the older structure thought of its permanence and its value. To attempt a valuation of some one portion of the whole fascinating story in anything like a compact volume is perhaps even more difficult than to tell the full tale. A full and accurate survey of the documents involved may leave one without a picture, and it is above all essential that the characters should be set against the background of their times, and that those little details ce superflu, si necessaire should be sketched in, which make all the difference between the vivid and the dull outlook.
Newton and the Origin of Colours: a Study of one of the Earliest Examples of Scientific Method.
By Michael Roberts E. R. Thomas. (Classics of Scientific Method.) Pp. viii + 133 + 8 plates. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1934.) 3s. 6d. net.
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F., A. Physics . Nature 135, 389 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135389b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135389b0