Sir D. Brewster
Lacock
May 21/50
Dr Sir
I hear that you have been to Paris <1> to witness the new experiments <2> which (it is said) demolish the Newtonian theory of light. What do you think of them?
I am just leaving home for Bowness in Westmoreland on the bank of Lake Windermere, where my family are already gone <3> for change of air.
As that place would not be out of your way in your return to Scotland I shall be extremely happy if you can make it convenient to pass that way. If you have never seen Windermere it will afford you much gratification in its beautiful scenery.
Believe me Yours vy try
H.F. Talbot
Notes:
1. Brewster and his daughter had gone to Paris in April 1850, following the death of Lady Brewster on 27 January.
2. In 1850 Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (1819–1868), French physicist, conducted experiments that proved that the velocity of light was less in water than in air, thus confirming the undulatory theory of light and disproving the Newtonian emission theory in which Brewster was a strong believer. [See Tobin, William, The life and science of Léon Foucault: the man who proved the earth rotates (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 117–132].
3. See Doc. No: 06322.