Newton Colour Cycle Essay

In 1666, at the age of 23 Sir Isaac Newton made a study on colour and his behaviour. He directed sunlight into a prism and noticed that seven colours were projected from the other side. He also Double-checked that the prism was not colouring the light. His study changed the world’s understanding of light and colour. He was also the first to understand the rainbow, he also told the fact that white light is light containing all wavelengths of the visible spectrum with the help of his experiments on the dispersion of light in glass prisms. [1] Figure1- 1: Newton Colour Cycle [1]

In 1802 Thomas Young suggested that different types of colour sensitive receptors present in the eye and his idea was developed by Hermann von Helmholtz and emerged as Young-Helmholtz theory. James Clerk Maxwell developed the usage of the primary colours and noticed that no addition of these colours can cover the entire range of perceivable colours but with some subtraction it can be done. Maxwell got to know that the chromaticity of a coloured surface is relatively insensitive to the brightness. This could be considered to be the basis for modern colorimetry. [1]
In 1965 detailed physiological experiments were performed to know how the types of cones in the eye are functioned. Those experiments confirmed the

Colour has three unique components which differ the chromatic from achromatic light, they are hue, saturation and intensity. Reporting a colour on these terms can be highly individual, but each can be illustrated by examining the spectrum. Naturally occurring colours are not just light at one wavelength, they contains a wide range of wavelengths. A colour’s "hue" tells which wavelength standout to be most prominent. The below spectrum likely to be perceived as bluish, even though it has wavelengths throughout the