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Einstein and the Changing Worldviews of Physics pp 23–37Cite as

The Newtonian Theory of Light Propagation

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Part of the book series: Einstein Studies ((EINSTEIN,volume 12))

Abstract

It is generally thought that light propagation cannot be treated in the framework of Newtonian dynamics. However, at the end of the 18th century and in the context of Newton’s Principia, several papers, published and unpublished, offered a new and important corpus that represents a detailed application of Newton’s dynamics to light. In it, light was treated in precisely the same way as material particles. This most interesting application—foreshadowed by Newton himself in the Principia— constitutes a relativistic optics of moving bodies, of course based on what we nowadays refer to as Galilean relativity, and offers amost instructiveNewtonian analogy to Einsteinian special and general relativity (Eisenstaedt, 2005a; 2005b). These several papers, effects, experiments, and interpretations constitute the Newtonian theory of light propagation. I will argue in this paper, however, that this Newtonian theory of light propagation has deep parallels with some elements of 19th century physics (aberration, the Doppler effect) as well as with an important part of 20th century relativity (the optics of moving bodies, the Michelson experiment, the deflection of light in a gravitational field, black holes, the gravitational Doppler effect).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. SYRTE, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, UPMC, Paris, France

    Jean Eisenstaedt

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  1. Jean Eisenstaedt
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. MPI for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Christoph Lehner

  2. and TOPOI Excellence Cluster, MPI for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Jürgen Renn

  3. and TOPOI Excellence Cluster, MPI for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Matthias Schemmel

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Eisenstaedt, J. (2012). The Newtonian Theory of Light Propagation. In: Lehner, C., Renn, J., Schemmel, M. (eds) Einstein and the Changing Worldviews of Physics. Einstein Studies, vol 12. Birkhäuser Boston. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-8176-4940-1_2

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