Superphysics
The Nature of Heat and Light
3 minutes • 454 words
Table of contents
Principles
| Cartesian Principles | Assertions |
|---|---|
| Light is a media that is different from physical objects | Light has a form, quality, action or movement |
Light naturally exists in the stars and flame, or fire.
Movement in Parts
When flame burns wood, it moves the small particles of the wood and separates them from one another.
- This transforms the subtler particles into fire, air, and smoke, and leaving the grosser particles as ashes.
Hence, the form of “fire,” the quality of “heat,” and the action that “burns” are completely different things from this wood.[6]
Body A cannot move Body B unless Body A itself were also moving [7].
It means that the flame’s body that acts against the wood is composed of small particles*. These move independently of one another with a very fast and violent motion.
Superphysics Note
They push and move with them the particles of the body:
- that they touch and
- that do not offer much resistance.
Its particles move independently of one another. They often act together to create a single effect. Yet they nonetheless act on their own against the bodies that they touch.
Their motion is very fast and very violent because they are so small that we cannot distinguish them by sight. They would not have the force to act against other bodies if the quickness of their motion did not compensate for their smallness.[8]
I add nothing concerning the direction in which each moves.
This is because the power to move and the power that determines that motion’s direction are two completely different things.
These can exist one without the other as I have set out in the Dioptrics[9]. Each part moves in the way least difficult* for it by the bodies around it.[10]
Superphysics Note
A flame can have particles going upward, downward, in straight lines, or circles. They can go in all directions, without changing anything of the flame’s nature.
Thus, if you see almost all of them tending upward, then it means that the bodies around them offer the least resistance in the upward motion.
How does the flame heat us and give us light?
Our sensation of heat becomes pain when flame is violent, and tickling when flame is moderate.[11]
This tickling and pain only comes from our mind. Thus, everything we touch also comes from our mind.
Many experiences favor this opinion. For example, by rubbing our hands together we heat them without any fire. The same motion that is in the flame causes us to sense light.
