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The following passage has been extracted from the book "The Magic of Science-A.Frederick Collins" (1917):

Substances of all kinds have pores or holes in them. A sponge has pores that can be seen and so has cheese, be it green or yellow; and so, too, have glass and metals, but the pores or holes in the latter are so small that you couldn't see them even with a high-powered microscope, but in glass they are large enough to let light go through them and in metals they are large enough to let electricity flow through them.

The following passage has been extracted from the book "QED:The strage theory of light and matter-Richard P Feynman" (around 1983-1985):

There are several possible theories that you could make up to account for the partial reflection of light by glass. One of them is that 96% of the surface of the glass is "holes" that let the light through while the other 4% of the surface is covered by small "spots" of reflective material. Newton realized that this is not a possible explanation.

Aren't the two passages in contradiction with each other?

Frederick says that glass is made up of holes that facilitates the passage of light through it, on the other hand Feynman is not ready to come in agreement. I think Frederick is little sloppy. Isn't it?

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    $\begingroup$ Wait, He said that the reason glass transmits light is because it has "pores" that are big enough to let light through, and the reason metal conducts electricity because it has "pores" that are big enough to let electricty through? But metal doesn't transmit light, and glass doesn't conduct electricty. You don't need a science education to smell the BS in that. Just a smidge of common sense should tell you that at least one of those claims must be wrong, and that an author who doesn't see that is just making **** up. $\endgroup$
    – Solomon Slow
    Mar 17, 2017 at 16:50

2 Answers 2

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Today we know that Collins is wrong.

He appears to be unaware of Newton's finding, and of course, advances made after he wrote his book.

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  • $\begingroup$ In fact, collins wrote the book, after Newton (1642-1726/7) saying to the world about his disagreement. Isn't it? So it doesn't matter whether he wrote it before the quantum theory or not. $\endgroup$
    – Sensebe
    Sep 24, 2014 at 14:30
  • $\begingroup$ To answer that I'd have to read his book, and find out what Newton actually said. In looking for it I discovered that his name is Collins, not Coclins. But it appears (but I can't verify) that Collins was not aware of Newton's statement. $\endgroup$
    – garyp
    Sep 24, 2014 at 14:35
  • $\begingroup$ I will accept your answer if you can edit your answer by reading the book as followed from the comment discussion. $\endgroup$
    – Sensebe
    Sep 24, 2014 at 14:49
  • $\begingroup$ What was your original question: 1.) Why are Collins and Feynmann in contradiction? (that's what I thought the question was) or 2.) Why did Collins put forth a theory that was already known to Newton as being wrong? or 3.) Something else? I can fix my answer if you can clearly state a question. $\endgroup$
    – garyp
    Sep 24, 2014 at 14:58
  • $\begingroup$ You have answered my question with the first line. But the second passage makes the sound of wrong message that Collins wrote it because he didn't know QED. If you can fix it. That's clear. $\endgroup$
    – Sensebe
    Sep 24, 2014 at 15:44
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The co-efficient of reflection or in other words the amount of transmitted portion depends on the nature of the substance on which it is incident. It passes through the substances of low conductivity more easily than the good conductors, due to dependence of the reflection or transmission co-efficients on the conductivity properties of materials on which it is incident. Eg1:Silver coating as a mirror .Eg2:Glass transmit easily.... Remembering silver is a very good conductor and a glass is bad conductor ......I don't know QED but Collins is a relatively very very less efficient explanation of the phenomenon.

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