THE MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF HUYGEN'S PRINCIPLE. B.B. Baker, E.T. Copson.
Publisher: Oxford University Press: 1950 2nd ed.

I expect disagreement, but that's why we're here. It ignores at least one other group of philosophers, namely those that believed in (mathematical) theory mediated measurement. My thesis is that the “wave” theory of light is a circular argument, based on Huygens untested assumption that waves impinge on a slit (or edge). From the Preface: ``The present monograph deals with the mathematical theory of Huygens' principle in optics and its application to the theory of diffraction. Colloids – Classification, Preparation, Properties . I am thinking of Galileo, Huygens, and Newton, among the best known. And to the walls of its container (Pascal's principle). Fresnel (Go through the idea of Fresnel integrals, and try to imagine how a young on-site engineer might have built this theory after coming back tired from the field work in the day, living in tents, with only a handful of mathematics books gathered at radom serving as references, writing with the quilt pen, and of course without electric light.). Wave theory, Huygens's principle, Rectilinear propagation of light, Interpretation of laws of reflection and refraction by Huygens's principle, Interference, Young's experiment, Determination of wave length of light by bi-prism. He developed a wave theory of light opposed to the corpuscular theory of Newton and formulated Huygens's principle, which holds that, concerning light waves, every point on a wave front is itself a source of new waves. And quantitative approaches, but rather it's a distinction between viewing natural philosophy as comprising a (Baconian) fact gathering stage before theorizing, and Newton's method of 'deducing' principles and laws of nature from which one derives new knowledge. Huygens' theory was particularly useful to explain diffraction (“the strange refraction of the Iceland crystal”), but had some remarkable difficulties to explain the apparent propagation of the light along straight lines. The easiest way for me is If you look at this you find that it's a vector in the direction of motion, and, per the uncertainty principle, describes the degree of uncertainty in terms of the relationship between displacement and momentum. Phases: It was Fresnel who independently rediscovered the Huygens principle on his own, and introduced phases in the theory. To overcome In 1923, the French mathematician J. Hadamard, in a series of lectures at Yale University, formulated in mathematical terms three different meanings of “Huygens' principle” he found in the literature of his time (Hadamard 1953). Chemical Kinetics – 1st and 2nd order of reactions, Mathematical formulation of the 1st and 2nd order of reactions, Methods of determination of the order of reaction. Second son of Constantijn Huygens. His importance to music theory lies in the Novus cyclus harmonicus (1661) in which he demonstrated the mathematical basis of the old theory of division of the octave into 31 equal parts.