The major significance of Newton's work is that it overturned the dogma, attributed to Aristotle or Theophrastus and accepted by scholars in Newton's time, that "pure" light (such as the light attributed to the Sun) is fundamentally white or colourless, and is altered into color by mixture with darkness caused by interactions with matter. He demonstrates how the appearance of color arises from selective absorption, reflection, or transmission of the various component parts of the incident light. In this book Newton sets forth in full his experiments, first reported to the Royal Society of London in 1672, on dispersion, or the separation of light into a spectrum of its component colours. Rather, the Opticks is a study of the nature of light and colour and the various phenomena of diffraction, which Newton called the "inflexion" of light. That is, this work is not a geometric discussion of catoptrics or dioptrics, the traditional subjects of reflection of light by mirrors of different shapes and the exploration of how light is "bent" as it passes from one medium, such as air, into another, such as water or glass. Opticks is largely a record of experiments and the deductions made from them, covering a wide range of topics in what was later to be known as physical optics. The publication of Opticks represented a major contribution to science, different from but in some ways rivalling the Principia. Opticks was Newton's second major book on physical science. It is considered one of the great works of science in history. (A scholarly Latin translation appeared in 1706.) The book analyzes the fundamental nature of light by means of the refraction of light with prisms and lenses, the diffraction of light by closely spaced sheets of glass, and the behaviour of color mixtures with spectral lights or pigment powders. Opticks is a book by English natural philosopher Isaac Newton that was published in English in 1704.
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