"A third and last paper in this department of physics [the infrared and light spectrum]... was published in volume ninety of the Philosophical Transactions and gave the results of two hundred and nineteen quantitative experiments. ...Herschel made a careful determination of the quantitative distribution of light and of heat in the prismatic spectrum, and discovered the surprising fact that not only where the light was at a maximum the heat was very inconsiderable, but that where there was a maximum exhibition of heat, there was not a trace of light. ...Herschel ...finally concluded that light and radiant heat were of essentially different natures... for a long time the question was looked upon as closed, and not until thirty-five years later was there any dissent. Then the Italian physicist, Melloni, with instrumental means a thousand times more delicate than that of Herschel, and with a far larger store of cognate phenomena, collected during the generation which had elapsed... discovered the true law."
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Composers from GermanyComposers from EnglandAstronomers from GermanyOrganistsAstronomers from the United Kingdom
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Ch.4 "Life and Works" Ref. "Experiments on the solar and on the terrestrial Rays that occasion Heat..." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Vol.90
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William Herschel
Sir Frederick William Herschel KH FRS (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel) (15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer, technical expert, telescope maker, organist and composer who became famous for discovering Uranus. He also discovered infrared radiation and made many other contributions to astronomy.
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