Sir David Brewster

Abstract

Sir David Brewster (1781–1868) Sir David Brewster was a Scottish physicist who invented the kaleidoscope, made major improvements to the stereoscope, and discovered the polarization phenomenon of light reflected at specific angles. Whether pursuing optical theories, inventions, photography, or even extraterrestrial life, he plunged into each undertaking with uncommon intensity. A child prodigy, Brewster was born in Jedburgh, an unremarkable country town in the Scottish lowlands. Possessing innate curiosity along with scientific proclivities, he quickly established himself as a brilliant student, entering the University of Edinburgh at the age of 12 to study the ministry. A prolific writer, he became editor of the Edinburgh Magazine and the Edinburgh Encyclopedia . In 1799 as a teenager, his interests turned to physics with a keen focus on optics, and he constructed several telescopes while dabbling in the physics of light. Although a licensed minister of the Church of Scotland, Brewster chose to pursue the finer aspects of optics and light. His career blossomed while he was in his late twenties and early thirties. At that time, Brewster was intensely pursuing details of the theory of light and wrote his first paper Some Properties of Light in 1813. One of his most important contributions to the science of physics was his work on polarization of light by reflection and biaxial crystals. To aid in his experiments, Brewster often constructed his own tools and even improved many technical instruments of the period. In his studies on polarized light, he discovered that when light strikes a reflective surface at a certain angle (now known as Brewster’s Angle), the light reflected from that surface is plane-polarized. Brewster elucidated a simple relationship between the incident angle of the light beam and the refractive index of the reflecting material. When the angle between the incident beam and the …