Page:A history of the theories of aether and electricity. Whittacker E.T. (1910).pdf/127

 series are so situated as to correspond to the depressions of the other, they mist exactly fill up those depressions, and the surface of the water must remain smooth. Now I maintain that similar effects take place whenever two portions of light are thus mixed; and this I call the general law of the interference of light."

Thus, "whenever two portions of the same light arrive to the eye by different routes, either exactly or very nearly in the same direction, the light becomes most intense when the difference of the routes is any multiple of a certain length, and least intense in the intermediate state of the interfering portions; and this length is different for light of different colours."

Young's explanation of the colours of thin plates as seen by reflexion was, then, that the incident light gives rise to two beans which reach the eye: one of these beams has been reflected at the first surface of the plate, and the other at the second surface; and these two beams produce the colours by their interference.

One difficulty encountered in reconciling this theory with observation arose from the fact that the central spot in Newton's rings (where the thickness of the thin film of air is zero) is black and not white, as it would be if the interfering beams were similar to each other in all respects. To account for this Young showed, by analogy with the impact of elastic bodies, that when z light is reflected at the surface of a denser medium, its phase is retarded by half an undulation: so that the interfering beams at the centre of Newton's rings destroy each other. The correctness of this assumption he verified by substituting essence of sassafras (whose refractive index is intermediate between those of crown and flint glass) for air in the space between the lenses; as he anticipated, the centre of the ring-system was now white.

Newton had long before observed that the rings are smaller when the medium producing them is optically more dense. Interpreted by Young's theory, this definitely proved that the wave-length of light is shorter in dense media, and therefore, that its velocity is less.