Scientific Models in Optics: From Metaphor to Metonymy and Back
1994; University of Pennsylvania Press; Volume: 55; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2709953
ISSN1086-3222
Autores Tópico(s)Philosophy and History of Science
ResumoIn his recent and very fine account, The Rise of the Wave Theory ofLight (1989), Jed Z. Buchwald ascribes the triumph of the wave theory advanced by proponents such as Thomas Young and Augustin Jean Fresnel over the emission theory that preceded it to the fact that, from the 1 830s on, the sine qua non of a theory's explanatory power became its ability to yield quantitative results.' Buchwald's argument seems sound enough, and yet it does not take the measure fully of another related and simultaneous change that he discusses: the movement from a selectionist conception of light as a ray phenomenon to an undularist conception of light as a wave phenomenon. For even relatively late selectionists such as David Brewster and John Herschel, writing in 1831 and 1827 respectively, Light consists of spatially discrete physical 'rays'.... [T]he ray possesses an identity as a physical object and so can be singled out and counted. Rays may be gathered in sets or 'bundles'..., and the elements of a bundle may share certain properties.2
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