“Professor Josiah P. Cooke, of Harvard University, says that he “cannot agree…with those who regard the wave-theory of light as an established principle of science.”
Herschel’s doctrine, that the intensity of light, in effect of each undulation, “is inversely as the square of the distance from the luminous body”, if correct, damages a good deal if it does not kill the undulatory theory. That he is right, was proved repeatedly by experiments with photometers; and, though it begins to be much doubted, the undulatory theory is still alive.
As General Pleasanton, of Philadelphia, has undertaken to combat this anti-Pythagorean hypothesis, and has devoted to it a whole volume, we cannot do any better than refer the reader to his recent work on the Blue Ray, etc.
We leave the theory of Thomas Young, who, according to Tyndall, “placed on an immovable basis the undulatory theory of light”, to hold its own if it can, with the Philadelphia experimenter.”
H. P. Blavatsky
