How Infrared Radiation Was Discovered—Range of This Discovery and Detailed, Unknown Information

Abstract

The reason for writing this article is that the details and mainly the scope of the fundamental discovery of infrared radiation are not widely known, and different accounts of this story are found in the literature. For example, not everyone knows that the discoverer of infrared radiation, F. W. Herschel, simultaneously studied its properties, which he, then, described in detail in his publications. It can be concluded that the history of the discovery of infrared radiation is treated marginally in the literature. This is not fair, considering the fact that infrared radiation is of fundamental importance to modern man. On the other hand, the history of the discovery of, for example, X-rays or Maxwell’s electromagnetic radiation is well known—this information is passed on to students of electrical faculties during lectures on “Fundamentals of Physics” or “Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering”. Although it is currently believed that the significance of infrared radiation for modern man is comparable to that of X-rays, when I ask the students during lectures who discovered infrared radiation and how, there is usually a deafening silence.

Keywords

• F. W. Herschel’s experiments
• infrared thermography
• thermovision measurements
• radiant heat transfer
• infrared radiation
• thermal imaging