What determines the color of the objects around us?
From a physical point of view, color is defined as the ability of a surface to change the spectral composition of the light falling on it.
In order for a surface to be perceived as colored, three conditions are necessary:
Study of the nature of color. Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) was an English mathematician, mechanic, physicist and astronomer, one of the founders of classical physics.
He is the author of the fundamental work "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", in which he outlined the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of mechanics, which became the basis of classical mechanics. Newton also developed differential and integral calculus, color theory, and many other mathematical and physical theories.
In 1670, English scientist Isaac Newton used a triangular glass prism to prove that a ray of light from any source is made up of rays of different colors.
Conducting experiments with glass, he drew a ray of sunlight through a glass prism and got an amazing picture: sunlight, which was previously considered homogeneous, turned out to consist of individual colors.
Light Spectrum
A ray of daylight passing through a triangular prism forms a colored band. The sequence of color decomposition in it is the same as in a rainbow.
In addition, Newton observed a continuous change in color in the spectrum. If a white beam passes through a prism, it is stretched into a ribbon of different colors, from red to purple. Thus, it was proved that a white ray is the sum of multicolored radiation.
Different color rays with different refractive indices deviate from the direct path by different amounts:
Spectral (monochromatic) colors
When the colored rays pass through the triangular prism again, they change direction slightly, but they do not change color.
Thus, the colored rays that make up white light do not decompose into their component parts and are simple. Such colors are called spectral or monochromatic.
Color Wheel and Color Classification
Along the circumference of the color wheel there are saturated colors that constantly change the color tone - spectral and magenta.
On each radius of the color wheel are colors of the same color tone, constantly changing in saturation, from spectral or magenta to white, which is located in the center of the circle. Color brightness changes in the color wheel are not taken into account.
Warm and cool colours
The entire spectrum by color shades can be roughly divided into two parts:
Cold colors are purple, blue, blue, and green. They are associated with the color of water, ice, and metal.
Warm colors are red, orange, and yellow. They are associated with the idea of hot bodies, fire, and the sun.
Conclusion
The results of the experiments allowed Newton to conclude that white light is complex and consists of many colored rays that are refracted differently when passing through a triangular prism. That is why a multi-colored stripe appears on the screen - a spectrum.