Letter from Newton to Henry Oldenburg, dated 21 May 1672 Isaac Newton c. 426 words Newton Project London 2011 Newton Project, University of Oxford

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 21 May 1672, c. 426 words. MS Add. 3976, ff. 14r-15v, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, UK UKCambridgeCambridge University Library MS Add. 3976, ff. 14r-15v 21 May 1672 England English Holograph Henry Oldenburg Unknown Cataloguer ScienceCorrespondence ScienceOpticsCorrespondence Catalogue information compiled by Rob Iliffe, Peter Spargo & John Young Catalogue exported to teiHeader by Michael Hawkins Transcribed by Robert Ralley. 8a[14]

May 21. 1672. Trin. Coll.

SrSir

Tis now more then a fortnight since in answer to yoryour last letter May 2d, I returned you some considerations on M. Cassegrains designe for refining yethe Telescope &And to yoryour suggestion that when my angswer to Mr Hooks & Father Pardies Objections should be printed, the names of the Objectors, especially if they desired, might be omitted; I told you that it was indifferent to me whether they were printed wthwith or without the Authors names, I being concerned in the matter of those objections without respect to their persons. But yet I understood not yoryour desire of leaving out Mr Hooks name, if because the contents would discover their Author unlesse the greatest ꝑpart of them should be omitted & the rest put into a new Method wthoutwithout having any respect, to yethe Hypothesis of colours described in his Micrographia. And then they would in effect become new objections & requeire another Answer then what I have written. And I know not whether I should dissatisfy them that expect my answer to these that are already sent to me.

But yet upon the receipt of yoryour letter I deferred the sending those things wchwhich are already writ I intended, & have determined to send you alone a part of what I prepared, as I told you, to accompany my Answer; for yethe sake of wchwhich I have hitherto suspended it. The subject of this discourse is the Phænomena of Plated Bodies, concerning wchwhich I shall by experiments first show how according to their severall thicknesses they reflect or transmit the rays indued wthwith severall colours, & then consider the relation wchwhich these thisn transparent Plates have to yethe parts of other naturall Bodies, in order to a fuller understanding of the cases of their colours also. And this I purpose to send becisuse it most properly apperteines to yethe former discourse of light, being a declaration of the different reflectibility of the severall sorts of rays, as that was of their different refrangibility. I onely expect yoryour answer to my last & this, & then my next may conteine yoryour ans this Subject. In the meane time I rest

YorYour humble Servant

I. Newton

Add 3976

These

To Henry Oldenburg Es at his house about the middle of the old Pall-Maile in Westminster

London.

2

Rec. May 22. 72.

Answ. May 23.

Answ Wrote again May june, and pressed His Answ. to Hook putting him in mind of his premiss and desiring to acknowledge tardies Candid return.