Physics of Light and Color
The principles on which color photography is based were first proposed by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1855 and presented at the Royal Society in London in 1861. By that time, it was known that light comprises a spectrum of different wavelengths that are perceived as different colors as they are absorbed and reflected by natural objects. Maxwell discovered that all natural colors in this spectrum may be reproduced with additive combinations of three primary colors—red, green, and blue—which, when mixed equally, produce white light.
Between 1900 and 1935, dozens of natural color systems were introduced, although only a few were successful.
Read more about this topic: Color Motion Picture Film
Famous quotes containing the words physics, light and/or color:
“Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without religion;Mso, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected from religion without morality;Mnevertheless, ‘tis no prodigy to see a man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet entertains the highest notion of himself, in the light of a religious man.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Rain falls into the open eyes of the dead
Again again with its pointless sound
When the moon finds them they are the color of everything”
—William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927)