"physico-mathematical experimental learning".
They tried to write pure and simple English, to avoid what they described as "this vicious abundance of phrase, this volubility of tongue".
At the time, learned books were usually written in Latin, because Latin was understood internationally and was regarded as more precise.
The members of the Royal Society wanted to make English a fit language for scholars, and English began to make inroads into the territory of Latin.
Newton had published his "Principia Mathematica"
in 1 68 7 in Latin, but in 1 7 04, his "Opticks" was published, written in English... a new kind of rational English, larded with terms of enquiry and argument.
MAN:
I proceeded by this Analysis to discover and prove the original Differences of the Rays of Light in respect of Refrangibility, Reflexibility, and Colour, and their alternate Fits of easy Reflexion and easy Transmission, and the Properties of Bodies, both opake and pellucid,
on which their Reflexions and Colours depend.
BRAGG:
Here was a new vocabulary of reason and investigation.
"Refrangibility" and "reflexibility"
were words coined by Newton to allow him to describe his experiments with refraction and reflection.
"Transmission" had been used before to mean "passing from one place to another".
Newton changed its meaning to describe passing through a medium.
And "opaque" had meant "unlit" for 200 years before the 1 7th century changed it to mean
"not allowing the passage of light".
The word "lens" had only been coined a decade before Newton used it in his book, and as he reported his observations, he also gave English the terms
"indistinctness" and "well-defined".
The scholars were reframing, redefining, and refashioning the language.
They made it part of their apparatus.
And there's another word that took on its meaning as the equipment for an experiment during this period.
There appeared to be a growing and general confidence in the state of English.
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