Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours

Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.1

Word count: 553K words
Chapters: 56

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) by Robert BoyleAuthor: Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691,Language: English, Class: QC: Science: Physics, Release Date: Dec 28, 2004

Editor's review

This is Robert Boyle's 1664 record of experiments and reflections on colour, a representative text from the seventeenth-century transition from natural philosophy to experimental science. Boyle discusses the causes of colour through a series of experimental observations, touching on light, the surfaces of bodies, and visual perception; his approach reflects the period's inclination to test hypotheses against experimental evidence. The book is not a modern textbook of colour science—its conceptual framework is remote from present-day physics and physiology—but precisely for this reason it has documentary value for readers of the history and philosophy of science, offering a window onto the relationship between early forms of experimental method and theoretical explanation. The Project Gutenberg electronic edition makes this public-domain work easily accessible and suitable as supplementary reading for courses in the history of science. It is best read within the seventeenth-century intellectual context, attending to its manner of posing questions and organizing evidence rather than judging it right or wrong by modern conclusions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Scholars and students studying seventeenth-century science and the formation of experimental method
Enthusiasts of the history of science interested in the evolution of colour theory and the prehistory of optics
Readers in the philosophy of science concerned with the relationship between experimental evidence and theoretical hypotheses
Instructors needing public-domain English primary sources as course supplementary materials

Not a good fit for

Beginners in science or engineering seeking a systematic study of modern colour science or optics
General readers expecting popular science writing and preferring light reading
Readers impatient with seventeenth-century English prose and lengthy experimental accounts

Reading tips

Begin by understanding the basic context of seventeenth-century natural philosophy before entering the specific experimental accounts, avoiding reading modern concepts into the text.
Read section by section according to the experimental entries, and after each, summarize the question the experiment sought to answer and the inference drawn.
Compare with other works in the history of science to map the differences among explanatory approaches to colour.
Note unfamiliar terms as you go and consult their period usage in a focused way; there is no need to trace every word.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Does this book discuss colour science in the modern sense?

No. It is a seventeenth-century record of experiments and reflections whose conceptual framework differs from present-day optics and physiology. Its value lies chiefly in the history of science and methodology, not in providing modern colour-science knowledge.

What background knowledge is needed to read this book?

A basic familiarity with seventeenth-century history of science and the ability to read early modern English are preferable. If you care only about conclusions, start with introductory works on the history of science and then return to the original text to examine its argumentation.

Do the book's experimental conclusions still hold today?

They should not be judged simply as holding or not holding. Some observations remain informative, but many explanations have been superseded by later theory. The focus should be on how experiments were designed and evidence organized.

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About the author

Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691 Author · Irish · 1627–1691

Robert Boyle (1627–1691) was an Irish-born natural philosopher, chemist, and physicist, and is regarded as one of the founders of modern chemistry. He is best known for formulating Boyle's law, which describes the relationship between the pressure and volume of a gas and helped bring experiment and mathematical measurement more closely into the study of nature. His representative works include The Sceptical Chymist and Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours. The former examines, in dialogue form, the limitations of the chemical element theories of his time, while the latter develops observations and experiments on colour phenomena, reflecting a style that values reproducible experiment and the testing of hypotheses against facts. His writings and scientific practice helped move chemistry away from the alchemical tradition toward an independent experimental science, leaving a lasting influence on later natural philosophy and experimental science.