Isaac Newton — "The particles of light are exceedingly small, and move with exceeding swiftness."
The particles of light are exceedingly small, and move with exceeding swiftness.
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More from Isaac Newton
"The causes of gravity are not yet discovered. It is by experiments and observations that we are to know them."
"He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who thinks seriously will believe in God."
"The best way to understand is by examples."
"If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought."
"Hypotheses non fingo. (I frame no hypotheses.)"
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Light is made of extremely tiny particles traveling at incredible speed. Newton is asserting a physical claim about the fundamental nature of light itself — that it has a corpuscular (particle-based) structure and that its velocity surpasses anything else in the observable world. He's grounding an abstract optical phenomenon in concrete physical terms anyone can grasp.
Relevance to Isaac Newton
Newton championed the corpuscular theory of light in his Opticks (1704), directly opposing Huygens' wave theory. This reflects his empiricist commitment to observable, mechanical explanations for natural phenomena. His work on prisms, reflection, and refraction all built toward this particle model, and he defended it with the same mathematical rigor he applied to gravity and motion.
The era
The late 1600s–early 1700s saw fierce debate over light's fundamental nature — particle versus wave — as natural philosophy shifted from Aristotelian tradition toward experimental science. The Royal Society era demanded mechanistic explanations. Newton's authority was so immense that his particle theory suppressed the wave theory for over a century, until Young's double-slit experiment in 1801 revived it.
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