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Descartes maintained his confidence in the instantaneity of light. … Yet in his derivation of the law of refraction, Descartes reasoned that light travelled faster in a dense medium than in one less dense. He seems to have had no qualms about comparing infinite magnitudes!

— Carl Benjamin Boyer The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics (1959)

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More quotes by Carl Benjamin Boyer

The Introductio does not boast an impressive number of editions, yet its influence was pervasive.

Ptolemy left in his Optics, the earliest surviving table of angles of refraction from air to water.

The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics (1959)

In myth and legend the rainbow has been regarded variously as a harbinger of misfortune and as a sign of good luck.

The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics (1959)

But what, after all, are the integers? Everyone thinks that he or she knows, for example, what the number three is — until he or she tries to define or explain it.

Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity (2013)

The conception of the rainbow as a pathway or bridge has been widespread.

The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics (1959)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Carl Benjamin Boyer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.