File:Optics from Roger Bacon's De multiplicatone specierum.jpg

Summary

A diagram which shows light being refracted by a spherical glass container full of water.

Roger Bacon's diagram relating to the scientific study of optics.

• Title: Opus Majus or De multiplicatione specierum or possibly De natura locorum (?)
• Author: Bacon, Roger or possibly Grosseteste, Robert
• Production: England; 13th century
• Language: Latin

The British Library, the holder of the manuscript and producer of the web page on which this image appears, describes the image as:

Shelfmark: Royal 7 F. VIII

Page Folio Number: f.25

Title of Work: De multiplicatione specierum

Author: Bacon, Roger

Production: England; late 13th century

The BL web page contains the disclaimer that "All efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in the above description, but the British Library cannot accept responsibility for any errors that may occur."

A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science, Fig. 2 describes this diagram as follows:

Diagram illustrating Grosseteste's theory, in De Nat. Loc. (see pp. 122, 149) of the focusing of the sun's rays by a spherical lens; from Roger Bacon's Opus Maius, iv. ii. 2, MS Roy. 7. F. viii, f. 25v....

Apparently based on Crombie, Colin A. Ronan. The Cambridge illustrated history of the world's science, 1983, attributes the image to Grosseteste's De natura locorum.

Copyright status:

public domain

Source:

http://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/britishlibrary/controller/textsearch?text=bacon&y=0&x=0&startid=32112&width=4&height=2&idx=2