Opticks · Isaac Newton
DEFIN. II.
_Refrangibility of the Rays of Light, is their Disposition to be refracted or turned out of their Way in passing out of one transparent Body or Medium into another. And a greater or less Refrangibility of Rays, is their Disposition to be turned more or less out of their Way in like Incidences on the same Medium._ Mathematicians usually consider the Rays of Light to be Lines reaching from the luminous Body to the Body illuminated, and the refraction of those Rays to be the bending or breaking of those lines in their passing out of one Medium into another. And thus may Rays and Refractions be considered, if Light be propagated in an instant. But by an Argument taken from the AEquations of the times of the Eclipses of _Jupiter's Satellites_, it seems that Light is propagated in time, spending in its passage from the Sun to us about seven Minutes of time: And therefore I have chosen to define Rays and Refractions in such general terms as may agree to Light in both cases. _Reflexibility of Rays, is their Disposition to be reflected or turned back into the same Medium from any other Medium upon whose Surface they fall. And Rays are more or less reflexible, which are turned back more or less easily._ As if Light pass out of a Glass into Air, and by being inclined more and more to the common Surface of the Glass and Air, begins at length to be totally reflected by that Surface; those sorts of Rays which at like Incidences are reflected most copiously, or by inclining the Rays begin soonest to be totally reflected, are most reflexible.
_The Angle of Incidence is that Angle, which the Line described by the incident Ray contains with the Perpendicular to the reflecting or refracting Surface at the Point of Incidence._ _The Angle of Reflexion or Refraction, is the Angle which the line described by the reflected or refracted Ray containeth with the Perpendicular to the reflecting or refracting Surface at the Point of Incidence._ _The Sines of Incidence, Reflexion, and Refraction, are the Sines of the Angles of Incidence, Reflexion, and Refraction._ _The Light whose Rays are all alike Refrangible, I call Simple, Homogeneal and Similar; and that whose Rays are some more Refrangible than others, I call Compound, Heterogeneal and Dissimilar._ The former Light I call Homogeneal, not because I would affirm it so in all respects, but because the Rays which agree in Refrangibility, agree at least in all those their other Properties which I consider in the following Discourse. _The Colours of Homogeneal Lights, I call Primary, Homogeneal and Simple; and those of Heterogeneal Lights, Heterogeneal and Compound._ For these are always compounded of the colours of Homogeneal Lights; as will appear in the following Discourse. _The Angles of Reflexion and Refraction, lie in one and the same Plane with the Angle of Incidence._ _The Angle of Reflexion is equal to the Angle of Incidence._ _If the refracted Ray be returned directly back to the Point of Incidence, it shall be refracted into the Line before described by the incident Ray._ _Refraction out of the rarer Medium into the denser, is made towards the Perpendicular; that is, so that the Angle of Refraction be less than the Angle of Incidence._
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.