Light really is incredible. That's why we had an entire episode tonight devoted to light, and more specifically, what light is. I really like the focus on scientists who, until now, were completely unknown outside the mainstream. Until this point, I had known of all the scientists that have been featured, but I have to confess, I had no idea who Joseph von Fraunhofer was. Optics has never really been my thing, so I guess that's not too surprising.
Tonight, we started off in ancient China, and how a Chinese astronomer (whose name eludes me) was the first to really experiment with light, along with a stern warning about how science requires freedom of expression to thrive. It's true, you can't exactly do much science if you're not allowed to question the status quo. Next we moved to medieval Iraq, and the scientist Ibn al-Haytham, the father of modern optics. His work was revolutionary, but equally important in this segment was that for several hundred years, the Middle East was the center of science and free expression. Funny enough, I'd recently done a bit of research into the Abbasid Caliphate, the empire that al-Haytham worked in, and it was simply remarkable. We owe so much to them, and they are for the most part left out of the history books. I guess you can blame the Mongols for that one.
After a brief detour at Isaac Newton's house, when he nearly discovered spectroscopy, and to William Herschel discovering that there is more light then what we can see; the show moves to early 19th century Bavaria, and to the most important figure of the episode, Joseph von Fraunhofer. His life is just another example of how sometimes, things just come down to luck. If that house hadn't collapsed, how much longer would it have taken for someone to discover the revolutionary science of spectroscopy? At the same time, how much more would we know now if Isaac Newton had gotten to it first? He was obsessed with optics, he could have easily done it.
Of course, the most important player in all of this is light itself, which is absolutely remarkable in every way. We haven't even learned everything there is to know about light yet, it get even stranger from here. I enjoyed the ending segment, seeing the city illuminated in every time of light, not just in visible. The X-ray city was particularly cool-looking. It really is incredible how much we don't see, but at the same time, we can see so much.
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