Page 25 - All About History - Issue 11-14

Science

Telescope
04 As part of his
studies on the nature of light, 01 Light sources
Natural light entered through a
Newton also invented a new
small hole in the window of the
kind of reflector telescope. room where Newton had set up
his laboratory.

02 Prism
Bought at a fair, the
triangular structure of
crystal splits white light
into a band of colours.

08 Isaac Newton
Born in 1643, the Englishman
was one of the world’s greatest
scientists. He is best known
for his theories on gravity
and by the time of his death
in 1727 his genius had been
acknowledged in his own time.

06 Waving energy Documents
Max Planck, Niels Bohr and 07 Newton personally drew
Albert Einstein later confirmed
that light has dual properties: it all the details of his experiment in
spreads like a wave but also like a diagram and through writings.
particles or energy ‘quantums.’ These would later form the basis of
one of his most famous books.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LIGHT

LIGHT POWERFUL LASER OPTICAL SPACE
PARTICLES MICROSCOPE Theodore Maiman FIBRE TELESCOPE
Albert Einstein Physician Fritz Zernike invents the first Even though the NASA and the European
discovers that light can builds the first phase- device to produce a ray physicist N Sinh Kapany Space Agency launch the
be treated in certain aspects contrast microscope: Using of visible, intense, coherent has been performing tests Hubble Telescope, which
as particles. It was because a property of diffracted and monochromatic light: the since 1952, this year the first orbits 559km (347mi) above
1905 of this – not because of the light that allows us to see laser. This discovery would long and efficient cables that Earth to observe the cosmos. 1990
theory of relativity – that microorganisms or the prove useful in fields ranging transmit light pulses by It completes an entire orbit
Einstein was awarded the inside of a cell without from medical science to means of thin glass fibre around Earth every 97
Nobel Prize in 1921. dyeing them. warfare. are produced. minutes. © Sol90 images
1905 1960 1970 1990
1938

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