Nature of waves

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Newton described light as particles called corpuscles.

Different colours were due to corpuscles of different sizes.

He explained reflection in terms of the corpuscles bouncing off of reflective surfaces.

Huygens described light as waves that spread out in all directions.

The different colours were due to different wavelengths.

Newton predicted that light would travel faster in a denser medium.

Huygens predicted that light would travel slower through a denser medium.

The speed of light could not be measured at that time, but Newtons's influence was so strong that people believed in his particle theory.

When the speed of light could be measured it was found that light travels more slowly in glass than in air.

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