See the article Questions Odd and Profound by Mary Jo Murphy.
Also visit The Royal Society site and click on Physics and 1st up to bat is
1672 Isaac Newton's theory on light and colours
from David Wark, Department of Physics, Imperial College London "Isaac Newton was at his brilliant best in this paper, alternating between theory and simple yet elegant experiments, between deep insights into the nature of light and immensely useful practical applications. His observations on the rainbow cast by a shaft of sunlight passing through a glass prism led on to the revolutionary discovery that colour is an inherent property of a ray of light, and that white light is a mixture of other colours. From this he realized that telescopes made from lenses would always yield slightly fuzzy images, because the different colours of light are focused at slightly different points, so he devised a telescope using mirrors: essentially the same design as the most powerful telescopes still in use today. Not bad for one paper, especially as the work was interrupted when he had to flee the plague (and scientists today think they have problems!)"
Title: A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor of the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge, Containing His New Theory about Light and Colors
Author: I Newton
Journal: Philosophical Transactions
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