ARAGO, DOMINIQUE- FRANCOIS et AUGUSTIN FRESNEL. - ESTABLISHING THAT LIGHT VIBRATES TRANSVERSELY.

Mémoire Sur l'Action que les rayons de lumière polarisés exercent les uns sur les autres.

Paris, Crochard, 1819. 8vo. No wrappers. In "Annales de Chimie et de Physique", Tome X, 2. Series, Cahier 3. Titlepage to vol. X. Pp. 241-336 (entire issue offered, Cahier 3). Arago and Fresnel's paper: pp. 288-306.

First appearance of this seminal paper in which Arago and Fresnel described the experiments which demonstrated that light vibrates transversely to its direction of forward movement.

"In a further letter to Arago, dated 29 April 1818 Young recurred to the subject of transverse vibrations, comparing light to the undulations of a cord agitated by one of its extremities. This letter was shown by Arago to Fresnel, who at once saw that it presented the true explanation of the non-interference of beams polarised in perpendicular planes, and that the latter effect could even be made the basis of a proof of the correctness of Young's hypothesis; for if the vibration of each beam be supposed resolved into three components, one along the ray and the other two at right angles to it, it is obvious from the Arago-Fresnel experiment that the components in the direction of the ray must vanish; in other words THAT THE VIBRATIONS WHICH CONSTITUTE LIGHT ARE EXECUTED IN THE WAVE-FRONT." (Edmund Whittaker in "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity I", p. 115). -

Parkinson, Breakthroughs 1819 P. - Magie "A Source Book in Physics, p. 325 ff.

Order-nr.: 47357