Fara Patricia
History & Philosophy of Science Department, Clare College, Cambridge CB2 1TL, UK
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2015 Apr 13;373(2039). doi: 10.1098/rsta.2014.0213.
Isaac Newton's reputation was initially established by his 1672 paper on the refraction of light through a prism; this is now seen as a ground-breaking account and the foundation of modern optics. In it, he claimed to refute Cartesian ideas of light modification by definitively demonstrating that the refrangibility of a ray is linked to its colour, hence arguing that colour is an intrinsic property of light and does not arise from passing through a medium. Newton's later significance as a world-famous scientific genius and the apparent confirmation of his experimental results have tended to obscure the realities of his reception at the time. This paper explores the rhetorical strategies Newton deployed to convince his audience that his conclusions were certain and unchallengeable. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
艾萨克·牛顿的声誉最初是由他1672年关于光通过棱镜折射的论文确立的；现在这篇论文被视为具有开创性的论述以及现代光学的基础。在论文中，他通过明确证明光线的可折射性与其颜色相关联，从而声称驳斥了笛卡尔关于光的改变的观点，进而认为颜色是光的固有属性，并非光穿过某种介质时产生的。牛顿后来作为举世闻名的科学天才的影响力，以及他的实验结果表面上得到的证实，往往掩盖了当时人们对他的接受情况的实际情形。本文探讨了牛顿运用的修辞策略，以说服他的受众相信他的结论是确定无疑且无可挑战的。这篇评论文章是为庆祝《皇家学会哲学学报》创刊350周年而撰写的。
