Was Newton's "Wave-Particle Duality" Consistent with Newton's Observations?

In 1675 Isaac Newton, after deep thought and sustained controversy, proposed a well-known hypothesis on light. The model that emerged might be characterized as a light-particle-ether-vibration model. On the one hand, the rectilinear propagation of light demanded a corpuscular theory; on the other, thin-film phenomena demanded the element of periodicity. The result was a "waveparticle duality" in which ether vibrations imposed periodicity on light particles as they passed through a thin film. According to Newton, "though light be unimaginably swift, yet the xthereal vibrations, excited by a ray, move faster than the ray itself, and so overtake and outrun it one after another."' The ether vibrations thus produced what in his Opticks2 Newton termed "fits of easy reflexion and easy transmission"-an interpretation generally regarded as a tribute to Newton's ingenuity in reconciling apparently contradictory phenomena. One danger in accepting this judgment uncritically lies in the implication that Newton was more or less open-minded on the wave-particle question. In a future article on Newton's work on diffraction I will try to demonstrate Newton's strong commitment o a corpuscular theory of