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Quotation from Treatise on Light by Christiaan Huygens
“hence the velocity of Light is more than six hundred thousand times greater than that of Sound. This, however, is quite another thing from being instantaneous, since there is all the difference between a finite thing and an infinite.”
Treatise on Light, Chapter I, trans. Silvanus P. Thompson (1912)
Huygens draws the conclusion of Römer's observations of Jupiter's moon, against Descartes's view that light is instantaneous.
Citation: "hence the velocity of Light is more than six hundred thousand times greater than that of Sound. This, however, is quite another thing from being instantaneous, since there is all the difference between a finite thing and an infinite." — Christiaan Huygens, Treatise on Light, Chapter I, trans. Silvanus P. Thompson (1912). (id huygens-treatise-on-light-q5)
Portrait: Christiaan-huygens4, Bernard Vaillant, Public domain.
