Treatise on Light: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Treatise on Light, credited to Christiaan Huygens, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Treatise on Light, by Christiaan Huygens. Read by Availle. Treatise on Light was published in 1690 and is probably the largest scientific volume on light published before Newton's Opticks. The book explains how light travels (i.e., that it has a certain velocity), and what happens when it hits a surface (refraction and reflection). A large portion of the book is devoted to the double refraction occurring in Iceland chrystal, and all drawn conclusions are proved geometrically. Christiaan Huygens (1629 - 1695) was a prominent physicist and astronomer. His main discoveries are the centrifugal force, collision laws for bodies and the argument that light consists of waves. He was a contemporary of Galilei and Descartes, and a member of the French Royal Society since 1663. (Summary by Availle)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Treatise on Light
• Author credits: Christiaan Huygens
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 13
• Combined MP3 track duration: 4:43:30

Catalogue topics

• science
• non-fiction
• opticks
• physics
• light
• waves

Track guide

1. 00 - Preface and Author's Introduction — 9:28
2. 01 - I: On Rays Propagated in Straight Lines, Part 1 — 23:13
3. 02 - I: On Rays Propagated in Straight Lines, Part 2 — 21:10
4. 03 - II: On Reflexion — 12:15
5. 04 - III: On Refraction, Part 1 — 13:04
6. 05 - III: On Refraction, Part 2 — 23:38
7. 06 - IV: On the Refraction of the Air — 13:43
8. 07 - V: On the Strange Refraction of Iceland Chrystal, Part 1 — 22:18
9. 08 - V: On the Strange Refraction of Iceland Chrystal, Part 2 — 40:06
10. 09 - V: On the Strange Refraction of Iceland Chrystal, Part 3 — 29:06
11. 10 - V: On the Strange Refraction of Iceland Chrystal, Part 4 — 26:13
12. 11 - VI: On the Figures of the Transparent Bodies, Part 1 — 21:42
13. 12 - VI: On the Figures of the Transparent Bodies, Part 2 — 27:33

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.