History of the mathematics of double refraction (Q1203024)

The author's study surveys the historical search for explaining the propagation of light in doubly refracting crystals, namely between 1690 (when Huygens' ``Traité de la lumière'' was issued) and 1926-28, with the works of Gustav Herglotz devoted to the same problem. Christiaan Huygens discussed mainly the wave theory of light, according to which light propagates with a velocity depending on the medium that accepts it. It thus offers explanation of the reflection and refraction of plane waves of light and the occurrence of diffuse light in a shadow. Also, double refraction --- the property of certain crystals to refract an incoming ray of light into two rays, all in the same plane --- is studied. In 1812, Malus discovered that reflected light is polarized and in 1816, Fresnel postulated that the vibrations of a plane wave of light are orthogonal to its direction of propagation. Around 1815, Brewster discovered a large class of biaxial crystals (i.e. there are two directions related to the crystal, the optical axes, for which the two refracted rays coincide). Ampère, Hamilton, MacCullagh and Plücker were the first to compute correctly the equation of the wave surface; then, in 1828, Hamilton published his ``Theory of systems of rays'', to be soon checked experimentally by the Irish physicist Lloyd. In the 19th century, the advances in elasticity theory had it applied for understanding the nature of light beyond geometrical optics. Other mathematicians interested in such problems were Navier, Cauchy, Green, and Stokes; later, Gabriel Lamé, Sonya Kovalevskaya and Vito Volterra; Joseph Grünwald, Fredholm, Nils Zeilon, and Petrovsky.