Descartes maintained his confidence in the instantaneity of light. ... Yet in his derivation of the law of refraction, Descartes reasoned that light travelled faster in a dense medium than in one less dense. He seems to have had no qualms about comparing infinite magnitudes! (Carl B. Boyer)

Descartes maintained his confidence in the instantaneity of light. ... Yet in his derivation of the law of refraction, Descartes reasoned that light travelled faster in a dense medium than in one less dense. He seems to have had no qualms about comparing infinite magnitudes!

Carl B. Boyer

Related topics

comparing confidence dense derivation faster infinite instantaneity law less light medium refraction travel yet descartes

Related quotes

I get 0.5 seconds to react to a ball, sometimes even less than that. I can't be thinking of what XYZ has said about me. I need to surrender myself to my natural instincts. My subconscious mind knows exactly what to do. It is trained to react. At home, my family doesn't discuss media coverage. View quote
Sachin Tendulkar
I mean it's weird because the thing that I love about acting is the fact that I can help people feel things, know themselves or feel less alone. It's my form of expression, in the same way that someone might paint a picture or sing a song in that you're hoping that it moves somebody outside of their own way of thinking. View quote
Naomi Watts
For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
This child is not mine as the first was I cannot sing it to rest I cannot lift it up fatherly, And bless it upon my breast. Yet it lies in my little one's cradle, And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she 's gone to Transfigures its golden hair. View quote
James Russell Lowell
Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners. View quote
Alexis de Tocqueville