Review by Choice Review
First published in Dutch in 1986, this is a major contribution to the history of 18th-century optics. Hakfoort begins by explaining that he will refute the generally accepted but drastically oversimplified claim that Newton's emission (or corpuscular) conception of light was dominant among 18th-century optical theorists (with the notable exception of Leonard Euler, who set forth a wave conception of light). Though this "standard historiography" has been disavowed for some time now by knowledgeable scholars of 18th-century physics, no fuller and more accurate historical account seems yet to be available. In any case, for Hakfoort the central figure in 18th-century optics remains Euler, who published in 1746 "the most lucid, comprehensive, and systematic [optical] medium theory of the [eighteenth] century." Some indication of Hakfoort's sophisticated historiography is how he scrupulously avoids the term "wave" in characterizing Euler's theory; for, while Euler (unlike Huygens) does define light as a periodic propagation of pulses in a medium with an as yet unknown association of colors with frequencies (by analogy with sound), he "does not introduce the term or concept wavelength." Furthermore, Hakfoort rejects the triumphalist, "great man" interpretation of the history of science, and instead presents a contextualized account of Euler's work in which many lesser figures play significant roles. For the most part, the book is well written, but the English diction and syntax are sometimes annoyingly noncolloquial, with a few obvious mistakes in translation. Upper-division undergraduate through faculty. R. Palter; emeritus, Trinity College (CT)
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
