He demonstrates how the appearance of color arises from selective absorption, reflection, or transmission of the various component parts of the incident light.
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Voltaire popularised Newtonian science, including the content of the both the Principia and the Opticks, in his Elements de la philosophie de Newton (1738), and after about 1750 the combination of the experimental methods exemplified by the Opticks and the mathematical methods exemplified by the Principia were established as a unified and comprehensive model of Newtonian science.
Opticks |
Other prescient work that became unpopular and largely forgotten for similar reasons possibly Henry Cavendish's light-bending calculations, John Michell's 1783 study of gravitational horizons and the spectral shifting of light by gravity, and even Isaac Newton's study in "Principia" of the gravitational bending of the paths of "corpuscles", and his description of light-bending in "Opticks".
In 2009, Peter Campus had a major retrospective show, Opticks at the British Film Institute in London.