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nydus/Goethe's Theory of ColoursPublic

This volume presents an English translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s treatise on the nature and perception of color. The work includes a collection of systematic observations and experiments alongside the author’s theoretical challenges to Newtonian optics.

Page 140 of 553
Table of Contents

GOETHE'S

d, and so throughout the circle.

205.

As it is with the simple effect, so it is with more complicated appearances. If we look through a horizontal prism (a b21) at a white disk placed at some distance behind it at e, the disk will be raised to f, and coloured according to the above law. If we remove this prism, and look through a vertical one (c d) at the same disk, it will appear at h, and coloured according to the same law. If we place the two prisms one upon the other, the disk will appear displaced diagonally, in conformity with a general law of nature, and will be coloured as before; that is, according to its movement in the direction, e.g.:22

206.

If we attentively examine these opposite coloured edges, we find that they only appear in the direction of the apparent change of place. A round figure leaves us in some degree uncertain as to this: a quadrangular figure removes all doubt.

207.

The quadrangular figure a,23 moved in the direction a b or a d exhibits no colour on the sides which are parallel with the direction in which it moves: on the other hand, if moved in the direction a c, parallel with its diagonal, all the edges of the figure appear coloured.24

208.

Thus, a former position (203) is here confirmed; viz. to produce colour, an object must be so displaced that the light edges be apparently

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