4 - Euler's ‘Nova theoria’ (1746)

Summary

When Leonhard Euler published his treatise ‘Nova theoria lucis et colorum’ (A new theory of light and colours) in 1746, he made a contribution to the medium tradition in physical optics that was without parallel in the eighteenth century. The ‘Nova theoria’ constitutes the most lucid, comprehensive, and systematic medium theory of that century. The significance of Euler's theory can be gauged partly from the fact that it was so widely discussed. No earlier attempts to provide an alternative to the theories developing within the emission tradition had stimulated pens to the same extent as Euler's ‘Nova theoria’. It is remarkable that a relatively short treatise published as part of a collection of articles on a range of subjects created such resonances, and all the more so when we compare this reaction with the limited response to Huygens' Traite - a complete book - and with the way in which Johann II Bernoulli's prize essay was virtually ignored. A partial explanation no doubt lies in the quality of Euler's work, while his authority also made it difficult to ignore his ‘new theory’.

Euler was probably the most important, or at any rate the most fecund, exponent of mathematics and natural philosophy in the Enlightenment. Although his accomplishments in mathematics and mechanics are generally known and acknowledged, Euler's contributions to optics have attracted little scholarly attention up to the present. However, his role in the discovery of achromatic lenses has been the subject of historical study.