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1872. On the Law of Extraordinary Refraction in Iceland Spar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

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Summary

It is now some years since I carried out, in the case of Iceland spar, the method of examination of the law of refraction which I described in my report on Double Refraction, published in the Report of the British Association for the year 1862, p. 272. A prism, approximately right-angled isosceles, was cut in such a direction as to admit of scrutiny, across the two acute angles, in directions of the wave-normal within the crystal comprising respectively inclinations of 90° and 45° to the axis. The directions of the cut faces were referred by reflection to the cleavage-planes, and thereby to the axis. The light observed was the bright D of a soda-flame.

The result obtained was, that Huygens's construction gives the true law of double refraction within the limits of errors of observation. The error, if any, could hardly exceed a unit in the fourth place of decimals of the index or reciprocal of the wavevelocity, the velocity in air being taken as unity. This result is sufficient absolutely to disprove the law resulting from the theory which makes double refraction depend on a difference of inertia in different directions.

I intend to present to the Royal Society a detailed account of the observations; but in the mean time the publication of this preliminary notice of the result obtained may possibly be useful to those engaged in the theory of double refraction.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1904

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