Newton boils an egg
Aditya Rishi

1666: Woolesthorpe Manor, near Grantham, England (the home of Sir Isaac Newton, Royal Astronomer): After having darkened his chamber, Newton makes a small hole in the window-shut to let in a convenient quantity of light. The glass prism that he bought today comes out from his pocket and is placed at the entrance. The light is refracted to the wall in front, which makes his heart leap in joy for a moment before his mind calms it down.

When he applies himself to observe closely the colours produced by the refraction, he notices that these are in an oblong pattern, while, according to the received laws, these should have been circular. The vivid colours terminate at the sides with straight lines, but, at the ends, the decay of light is so gradual that the patterns seem semi-circular. The length of this coloured Spectrum is about five times greater than its breadth. The disproportion is so large that he doubts whether the thickness of the glass or the termination with shadow or darkness could have any influence on light to produce the effect. The more he thinks, the less he knows.

He transmits light through thick parts of the glass and even sets the prism so as the light might pass through it and be refracted before it was terminated by the hole, but the fashion of the colours in all these cases remains the same.

Unable to go any further in this experiment, he prays to God to show him some light. To give time for the prayers to go up and blessings to come down, he decides to prepare breakfast.

"I’ll have a boiled egg," he tells himself. He likes to boil his egg for exactly 15 minutes, but he has no watch or clock (we are in 1666). He has only a 7-minute hourglass and an 11-minute hourglass, using which, he has to time exactly 15 minutes. Stuck again, he sits under an apple tree in his front yard and ponders. Just then, an apple drops on his head and triggers and uncontrollable gush of ideas.

This causes him again to take his prism and place it at the window as before. He turns it a little about its axis to and fro so as to vary its obliquity to the light, but the quantity of refraction is not sensibly varied. It is evident that the rays, after passing through the prism, do not move in curved lines. "White light is composed of different rays, each associated with a specific angle of refraction and a specific colour," Newton notes down.

The apple also makes him discover gravitation, that we all know, but, now, we want to know how he timed exactly 15 minutes to get a perfectly boiled egg. (Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in; solutions will be given every alternate week)