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| Program > Early Modern Science |
| Programme > La science au XVIIe siècle |
| Kathryn
Morris (University
of King's College) Lines of Light: Hobbes, Refraction, and the Human Heart |
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Like many of his contemporaries, Hobbes was fascinated with optics. He wrote widely on the subject, and his work in this area represents the bulk of his early scientific efforts. This paper will compare two proofs that Hobbes offered for the sine law of refraction. The first proof, which can be found in an early optical treatise (published by Mersenne in 1644 as part of his Cogitata Physico-Mathematica), is based on Hobbes’s physical explanation of refraction in terms of the changes of speed that light rays undergo when moving from medium to medium. In De Corpore (1655) Hobbes presents a much less successful proof, which attempts to demonstrate that the sine law describes not only the behaviour of light, but also that of propagated motion in general. It is difficult to understand why Hobbes, in De Corpore, chose to abandon his earlier, more successful approach to the problem of refraction (which had attracted the attention of Robert Hooke, among others). I will argue that this puzzling shift was due to his determination to develop a comprehensive philosophical system and, in particular, to his growing conviction that optics could provide a crucial link between his physics and his account of human nature.
Early Modern Studies Programme
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