Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Light spectrum, from Theory of Colours – Goethe observed that colour arises at the edges, and the spectrum occurs where these coloured edges overlap.. Theory of Colours (German: Zur Farbenlehre) is a book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the poet's views on the nature of colours and how they are perceived by humans.
Isaac Newton (d. 1727) worked extensively on color theory, developing his own theory from the fact that white light is composed of a spectrum of colors, and that color is not intrinsic to objects, but rather arises from the way an object reflects or absorbs different wavelengths. His 1672 paper on the nature of white light and colours forms the ...
Newton's theory asserts that each prismatic color is 1/7 of the whole of light. If an infinite number, instead of seven, of light rays is assumed, then each color would be an infinitely small fraction of the whole of light. Schopenhauer's theory, however, claims that yellow is ¾ as bright as white.
To explain the origin of colours, Robert Hooke (1635–1703) developed a "pulse theory" and compared the spreading of light to that of waves in water in his 1665 work Micrographia ("Observation IX"). In 1672 Hooke suggested that light's vibrations could be perpendicular to the direction of propagation.
The major significance of Newton's work is that it overturned the dogma, attributed to Aristotle or Theophrastus and accepted by scholars in Newton's time, that "pure" light (such as the light attributed to the Sun) is fundamentally white or colourless, and is altered into color by mixture with darkness caused by interactions with matter ...
If the reflectance spectrum of a color is 1 (100%) for all the wavelengths between A and B, and 0 for all the wavelengths of the other half of the color space, then that color is a maximum chroma color, semichrome, or full color (this is the explanation to why they were called semichromes). Thus, maximum chroma colors are a type of optimal color.
Newton's corpuscular theory of light was gradually succeeded by the wave theory. It was not until the 19th century that the quantitative measurement of dispersed light was recognized and standardized. As with many subsequent spectroscopy experiments, Newton's sources of white light included flames and stars, including the Sun.
Nigel J.T. Thomas provides a particularly clear presentation of the argument. The psychologist George Boeree, in the tradition of J. J. Gibson, specifically assigns color to light, and extends the idea of color realism to all sensory experience, an approach he refers to as "quality realism". [citation needed]