{"id":517,"date":"2014-04-04T18:31:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T18:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godshampoo.com\/?p=517"},"modified":"2014-04-05T14:42:45","modified_gmt":"2014-04-05T14:42:45","slug":"opticks-or-a-treatise-of-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/?p=517","title":{"rendered":"Opticks or, a Treatise of… Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am looking at the Analytical Table of Contents of Opticks.<\/em>\u00a0I was attempting to page past it, but this Table of Contents is the notes format of the book, wherein Newton even describes the positioning and shapes of the lenses, and<\/i> the light beam, everything accounted for.<\/p>\n

I was looking for the beginning of Newton\u2019s own voice, for\u00a0Opticks<\/em>, past all the commentary, as if no mortal could possibly just begin to read the notes of this curious, clear explorer. Even Einstein\u2019s notes are notes, talk about needing a Sherpa through the work.\u00a0 I saw it when I was reading in the contents how to position two lenses, how perhaps another explorer would begin by setting the lenses like so, but that I am interested in the experience of the discoverer, standing in the dark room, letting in one shaft of light and wondering into it – \u00a0a way to understand light, perhaps sight, perhaps vision, but stand in the dark room with the disappearing shaft of light (because it\u2019s the sun or bust for Newton) and quick think of what to do to understand. I want to know what Newton does with that moment. \u00a0I am flipping for the beginning to find where Newton begins so I can see which he is even considering.\u00a0 Has he captured the light in order to examine his optics, or is he using the optics to understand the light?\u00a0 Obviously the work is called Opticks<\/em>.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s Opticks or, a Treatise of… Light<\/em>. That\u2019s the title.\u00a0 That way of not quite being able to choose between the two natures, i.e. wave, particle; dream, wake; chicken, egg; Opticks, Light; that dynamic manifests like a mineral stripe in all the loveliest considerations. Such as what the work is about in Newton\u2019s own mind.<\/p>\n

I wonder what kind of optical properties his late 1600\u2019s Italian glass had.\u00a0 To what extent did Newton have an eye out for surprise, the unexpected, what was better for Newton… when the thing went as planned, or when a new unexpected thing showed up? I am not ready to say he loved best to know the answer in advance merely because he was an ace hypothesizer and excellent recorder.<\/p>\n

I find Newton’s first statement of the book part of Opticks<\/em>. \u2018…explain the properties of Light\u2019 that\u2019s the mission. \u00a0My own interest is really in vision as a form of perception, light being essential to vision, we won\u2019t be seeing something light doesn\u2019t do.\u00a0 the way it moves, the way it behaves is the foundation of visual perception.\u00a0 Fingers in the Eye or not. \u00a0kNew-ton.<\/p>\n

Newton decided to know about light through Opticks, optics, so, you know, optics will be limited to describing certain behaviors of light, but not all possible behaviors of it.\u00a0 all to say, do not let mind form a tight seal around the parameters of any one investigation.<\/p>\n

and later by 250 years, will come Buckminster, my simultaneous read, to point out the six count ’em, six, and that’s twelve with their anti-selves, six “economical vectors, so there are six positive, six negative, equally economical options at every event.”<\/p>\n

… a key, the simple little key to one\u2019s own mind.\u00a0 \u2018key is a tricky word, isn\u2019t it<\/i>,\u2019 I write in imaginarily descending fonts until the final ‘t’ is barely visible.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t want to assign all the other qualities of Key to a mental vantage point, a perspective, a lens, the eye \u2013 the eye makes the picture…. mm, I say, always to myself, as if I am saving all the words, letter by letter, for later.\u00a0 I see Newton\u2019s lovely little perspectival eye, the blooming V for Vision, the look of looking.\u00a0 The lens, the creative eye, the eye, I\u2019m just saying, of Horus, because I have left myself messages everywhere, on currency and the wooden cabinet in my dining room, the eye, Georges Bataille, too, and the All-Seeing Eye of the fortune teller.\u00a0 \u00a0Newton, not only concerned with what ties us and our apples to the ground, but already making note of the quantum with the drawn eyeball of Opticks<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The bubbles in the lightshadow, give me the words, I claw toward the lightning sky, about how the photons make a ghostly other that is totally unpredicted in more commonly visible photon tricks, but I am paring down the light, so that I end up with a tightly baffled shaft of light, which I find later, were also Newton\u2019s conditions for the Opticks<\/em> experiments. I think I bought a Newton prism in my last Science surplus lens spree.\u00a0 I must snap right out of this sitting around, and right into the making of stuff before I have to admit that I\u2019ve come down with a sitting and typing ailment.\u00a0 There are lenses and light and little drawings of eyeballs waiting to see whatever will happen when I create the baffled conditions.\u00a0 I sigh, does it have to be so perva<\/i>sive?<\/p>\n

I think of rooms famously altered with light and darkness, like the inside of Notre Dame<\/p>\n

\"Newton<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am looking at the Analytical Table of Contents of Opticks.\u00a0I was attempting to page past it, but this Table of Contents is the notes format of the book, wherein Newton even describes the positioning and shapes of the lenses, and the light beam, everything accounted for. I was looking for the beginning of Newton\u2019s … Continue reading Opticks or, a Treatise of… Light<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshampoo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}