Newton's Study of Light and Color

      Although Newton is famous for his studies of physics, another key study was his study of light and color. Whilst the rest of the world was firm in the belief that white light was the purest form of light and that colors were just white light colored in, Newton's beliefs were different. He believed that white light was just a combination of all the colors. To prove his theory he performed his famous prism experiment. Using a prism he sat in a dark room and let a single beam of light shine into the prism which in turn projected the light across the room onto the wall on the opposite side. At the time it was widely believed that the prism would actually color the light but this was not so. To prove the point even further he blocked the light so only the green light would show. Then he placed a second prism directly in the beam of green light.
      If the widely believed theory was true it would divide the light even further and create more colors but this was not the case as when the beam passed through the second prism it stayed green, therefore proving that the light could not be divided further. This experiment was very important because it provided the basis for the study of colors in future experiments such as the light in the invisible spectrum: infrared and ultraviolet light. This also provided a useful way to organize color, the color wheel.
      Newton had aquired a copy of a book called Optica Promota written by James Gregory and inspired Sir Isaac Newton when he read a passage about designing a reflecting telescope. Although the idea and concept was in place, the actual telescope was never created and no one successfully created a working telescope. However, Newton took up the challenge and created a design plan for it. He used his earlier studies of light to develop the telescope and eventually accomplished and enhanced his studies of light with it. He even saw Jupiter using it!

Opticks was a book written by Sir Isaac Newton that discussed in great detail his study of light. By combining mathematics with science, Sir Isaac Newton discussed various Definitions, Axioms, and Propositions. Since this book was written in English, Opticks quickly became a more popular read because many more people were able to understand his findings.
(The various excerpts of the book can be enlarged by clicking on the image below.)

Image from http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/GoetheColour.html