Lesson 2

AGENDA:

History of Light and Colour - Part 1

• Ancient Greeks

• Middle Ages

• Renaissance

• Separation in Colours of Light and Materials

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Unit 1: History of Light & Colour
Ancient Greeks

Middle Ages
Lesson 2

Renaissance

Separation in Colours of Light and Materials

Physiology of Human Perception

Lesson 3

Modern Colour Systems

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 Video 2.1:

Ancient Greeks

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 Antiquities: Ancient Greeks’ Optics
Over the approximate time period of 600 B.C. to 200 A.D, ancient Greeks
gave us the earliest recorded attempts at explaining light and color with
rational, non-religious theories.

Some of the key ideas in their theories were:

• seeing light and darkness as separate entities from each other

• explaining light in terms of one of the four ‘natural elements’: fire

• mixing of ‘light’ with human ‘vision’

• Intromission vs. Extramission theories of vision

• mathematical explanations

• linear (1-D) colour classification system

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 Anaxagoras: Darkness Breakthrough

Anaxagoras (500-428 BC) continued the

scientific inquiry of modeling our world,
especially the celestial mechanics.

Anaxagoras, along with Empedocles, was one of the first to finally realize
that darkness is simply the absence of light, rather than a separate
‘entity’ from light.

He further applied this concept to correctly explain the source of the

phases of the moon being sunlight reflected by the moon, rather than
emitted by it.
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 Democritus: Intromission Theory of Vision
Democritus (460-370 BC) is credited with the new fundamental idea
of all matter consisting of invisibly-small, indivisible atoms.

His theory of vision included visible objects shedding thin films of atoms, from
outer surface, which retained their shape and colour, and eventually entered
our eyes. In other words, physical forms of the objects entered our eyes.

This was an example of an intromission theory of vision: we ‘see’ objects

around us because something external enters into our eyes, to give us
perception of these objects. In Democritus’ theory, it was tiny atoms of matter,
released by physical objects, which entered our eyes.

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 Plato: Extramission Theory of Vision
Plato (427-347 BC) was another influential Greek
philosopher who eventually founded the first
organized ‘school’ in Western civilization.

Plato supported an extramission theory of vision,

where ‘rays of vision’ (or light) were released from
the eyes, to ‘touch’ the external objects and bounce
back to our eyes, giving us a ‘visual sensation’ of
them through this ‘remote touching’.

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 Aristotle: Propagation through a Medium
Aristotle (384-322 BC), yet another influential Greek
philosopher, was a student of Plato (and teacher of
Alexander the Great).

Aristotle developed a new intromission theory of vision, where certain

transparent media like air, water and many solids, would allow transmission of
colours from outside objects. In other words, objects would somehow ‘imprint’
their colours on the adjacent layer of this medium (eg: air), and it would then
pass from one layer to another, to eventually arrive into our eyes, which are
also in ‘contact’ with this transparent layer.

Note that it wasn’t the passage of light through a medium that gave us vision,
but the passage of colours of objects, imprinted on the medium which was
‘filled’ with light. 8
 Aristotle: 1D (Linear) Colour System
Aristotle believed that all colours themselves were the results of mixing of
light and dark to differing amounts, so he devised a linear colour system
of 7 basic colours W-Y-R-V-G-B-BL (see example below).

Aristotle also recognized that the appearance of colour was affected by other
factors, such as lighting (natural daylight or candle) and background contrast
(violet on white wool looked different from violet on black wool).
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 Euclid: Geometrical Optics
Euclid (330-270 B.C.) was a great mathematician
considered by many as the ‘father of geometry’, having
derived many geometric theorems by applying strict rules of
logic to ‘obvious’ mathematical axioms (or ‘starting points’).

He tried to apply the same style of ‘logical reasoning’ to optics, although

using an extramission theory of vision as his ‘obvious’ starting point.

Despite the extramission theory serving as his foundation, Euclid was

nonetheless able to correctly predict several laws of geometrical optics
using ‘rays’, such as the law of reflection. These works, published in his
book ‘Optica’, would serve as the foundation of geometrical optics.
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Video 2.2:

Middle Ages

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 Middle Ages
Over the approximate time period of 800 to 1300, the study of light and optics
was resurrected after a fairly long period of inactivity prior to it, by Arabic and
European scientists.

Some of the key ideas in their theories were:

• more geometrical optics work on ‘rays’ (from objects and light) (Al-Kindi)

• stronger scientific emphasis on exploration of light (and colour)

• first correct theory of vision using external light rays (Alhazen)

• first 2-dimensional colour classification system (Grosseteste)

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 Al-Kindi: Outward-Radiating Rays of Light
Al-Kindi (813-866 / 801-866) was an Arabic scientist
living in what is today Iraq. He translated many works by
the ancient Greek philosophers, including those on light
and optics.

Although he favoured an extramission theory of vision, he made a

significant contribution in advancing how rays of light would be studied: on
a point-by-point basis. He argued that each point on a luminous body
emitted rays of light outward in all directions, independently from
each other.

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 Alhazen: Revolution in Optics and
Visual Perception
Alhazen (965-1040), or also Al-Haytham, was born in present-day Iraq, but did
much of his work in Egypt. He is considered by many as one of the greatest
experimental scientists of the Middle Ages, bringing much advancement to
many scientific theories of nature through experimentation and observation.

He particularly revolutionized the study of optics and visual perception, by

combining experimentation with mirrors and lenses, along with logic. He argued
that light bounces of every point on the surface of physical objects, and
then travels to our eyes in straight lines – the first correct theory of vision, at
least as far as the external light rays were concerned.

He also contributed to other works on the nature of light, such as refraction and
reflection.
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Robert Grosseteste: 2nd dimension of colour
Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253) was the first
white
chancellor of Oxford University in England, with a
strong emphasis on scientific inquiry.

Grosseteste created the first 2-dimensional colour

classification system, by adding a brightness (‘lux’)
scale in addition to the 7 basic colours (or hues).

These two dimensions of colour were placed as

perpendicular axes to each other, making this a 2D
system.
black 15
 Albertus Magnus: White Contains All Colours?

Albertus Magnus (1193/1206-1280) was a Dominican friar

in Germany, who advocated for the peaceful coexistence
of science and religion.

He is believed to be the first person to have recorded the idea that

all colours could be contained in ‘white’ in a 13th century treatise:
“Appearing in white are absolutely all the colours which mankind can imagine
on the face of this Earth".

His writing would later influence Newton’s work with light and prisms.
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 Video 2.3:

Renaissance

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 Renaissance
Over the approximate time period of late 1400s to late 1600s, scientists like
Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo ushered in the great Scientific Revolution, by
radically changing the long-held Aristotelian views of the Earth-centred,
unchanging universe. During this revolution, theories of light, optics and vision
also advanced.

Some of the key ideas in their theories were:

• unification of geometrical optics of light rays with the internal workings of the
eye, for a first complete theory of vision (Kepler)

• quantifying the exact amounts of bending of light due to its passage through
physical media (Snell)

• artists’ exploration of primary versus secondary colours through paints (da

Vinci)
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 Kepler: First Complete Description of the Eye
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a German astronomer
who gave us the famous 3 laws of planetary motion, helping
to confirm the new idea of a sun-centred ‘universe’.

During his astronomical work, he also

contributed greatly to the science of vision, by
offering the first complete description of the
anatomy and function of the human eye.

Scientists could now unify the intromission

theories of light bouncing off objects to enter the
eye, and the eye then bending the light rays
through refraction, to focus them. 19
 Snell: The Law of Refraction of Light
Willebrord Snell (1580-1626), or Snellius, was a Dutch
astronomer and mathematician, who contributed to both fields.

Although several people have noted and

experimented with refraction of light (bending)
before him, Snell is credited with deriving the first
accurate mathematical form of the law of the
refraction of light: n1 sin(1 ) = n2 sin( 2 )

Snell’s Law is able to determine exactly how much

light will bend while travelling in different media,
if the density of these media is known.

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 Leonardo da Vinci: Primary Colours;
Simultaneous Contrast
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is the archetype of the true
‘Renaissance man’: a man of infinite curiosity, limitless
inventiveness and talents, and a universally accepted genius.

All of his amazing contributions to science, technology and art are simply too
numerous to list here, so we’ll focus on his contributions to the study of colour.

1. First recognition of a distinction between

primary and secondary colours. (green?)

2. Observations of simultaneous contrast, where certain colours placed

together will enhance each other’s contrast (blue/yellow, red/green, light/dark.)
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 Video 2.4:

Separation in Colours
of Light and Materials

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Separation in Colours of Light and Materials
This section in colour history will cover the approximate time period of late
1600s to late 1700s. During this period, scientists and artists finally started to
gain a better understanding of the distinction between colours of light and
physical materials such as paints and textiles.

Some of the key ideas in their theories were:

• demonstration of white light containing all colours of the spectrum (Newton)

• the colour wheel (Newton)

• a separate colour system for surface colours like paints and textiles, rather
than one colour system for colours of light and surface altogether (Harris)

• first proper 3-dimensional colour system (Lambert)

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 Newton: White Light Contains All Spectral Colours
Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was an English physicist,
mathematician, astronomer, alchemist and philosopher.
He profoundly changed our view of the universe by his
famous laws of motions, universal gravitation, invention of
calculus, and his optical experiments with light and prisms.

1. By passing a white beam of light through a prism, he found

that white light contains all the colours of the spectrum:
violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.
(Modern listing is: violet, blue, cyan, green, yellow, orange and red.)

He then ‘folded’ this

linear sequence of
colours into a colour
circle, or the traditional
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colour wheel.
 Newton: Spectral Colours Recombine to White
2. These colours are fundamental constituents of white light, and not the result
of the prism ‘staining’ white light to produce colour, as was previously believed.
The prism simply splits up the colours that are naturally present in white light.

R
V
Spectrum
of colours

By passing the spectrum of colours produced after the first prism

through a 2nd, inverted prism, he showed that the
spectral colours will recombine back into white light. 25
 Newton: Each Spectral Colour is ‘Basic’
3. Each basic colour cannot be split up into any more constituent colours
– it is the most basic and fundamental component of light. He showed this in his
‘experimentum crucis’, where he isolated a beam of red light (from the first
prism) and passed it through a second prism – it remained unchanged (still
red), proving that the prism itself does not ‘stain’ or change the white light to
produce colour.

This is a
diagram of the
experiment
setup from
Newton’s
notes.

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 Moses Harris: Subtractive Colour System
English entomologist and engraver Moses Harris (1731-1785) was more
interested in mixing colours of paints from the Red, Blue and Yellow primaries.

Harris drew upon Le Blon’s (1667-1742) earlier discovery that R, B and Y

pigments can be used to create all other colours, and that a mixture of all three
will create black. (Le Blon was credited with inventing colour printing.)

Harris ultimately created the first subtractive

colour system for physical materials like
pigments, with 18 hues. This system properly
showed that mixtures of the three primaries
would result in a dark (black) colour, and
contained 660 distinct colour-units.
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 Johann Lambert: First 3D Colour System
Johann Lambert (1728-1777) was a German mathematician,
physicist and astronomer, who made important contributions to
the study of light and reflectivity properties of physical surfaces.

Lambert is also credited with creating the

first 3-dimensional colour system,
where the three basic attributes of colour –
hue, saturation and brightness – are
properly varied. His system contained 108
distinct colour-units.

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