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| Titel |
Iceland spar and its legacy in science |
| VerfasserIn |
L. Kristjánsson |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
2190-5010
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: History of Geo- and Space Sciences ; 3, no. 1 ; Nr. 3, no. 1 (2012-05-16), S.117-126 |
| Datensatznummer |
250000861
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/hgss-3-117-2012.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| In the late 17th century, Rasmus Bartholin and Christiaan
Huygens investigated a curious optical property of crystals found at
Helgustaðir in Eastern Iceland. This property which has been called
double refraction, revealed in the 19th century a new aspect of light which
turned out to be very useful as a probe of the internal structure of matter.
Clear specimens of these crystals, an unusually pure variety of calcite,
have since around 1780 been known as ''Iceland spar''. Few if any other
localities yielding calcite crystals of comparable size and quality were
discovered before 1900, and no alternatives for use in precision optical
instrumentation were developed until the 1930s. Hundreds of tons of calcite
were exported from Helgustaðir, mostly between 1850 and 1925. However,
little information has been found on trading routes for the material of
optical quality, so that some enigmas remain regarding its supply-demand
situation. A study of the scientific literature in the period up to 1930 has
revealed that results obtained with the aid of Iceland spar accelerated
progress within the earth sciences (in mineralogy and petrology), physics,
chemistry, and biology, even by decades. This has also influenced the
development of technology and of medicine in various direct and indirect
ways. |
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