Dispersion of light in the prism (Marci's Thaumantias)
Dispersión de la luz en el prisma (Thaumantias de Marci)
- Date
- 1648 · confidence high
- Place
- Prague, Bohemia, Czechia
- Credited to
- Jan Marek Marci
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
In 'Thaumantias, liber de arcu coelesti' he described the splitting of sunlight into colours through a prism and observed that each colour did not change when passed through a second prism. He anticipated Newton's key experiment on colour.
Interpreting Marci as a forerunner of Newton is debated: he described it within a still Aristotelian framework, without the theory of white light's composition that Newton formulated. There is no evidence Newton knew his work.
What it led to
- an explanation of the rainbow by differential refraction of each colour
- the theory that colours are properties of light and not of matter (Newton, 1666-1672)