The Refractive and Motor Mechanism of the Eye (Classic Reprint)

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Fb&c Limited, Nov 13, 2016 - Science - 362 pages
Excerpt from The Refractive and Motor Mechanism of the Eye

Colon - It can be shown with the aid of a prism, which causes a separation of waves according to their period of oscilla tion, that sunlight is composed of a number of waves of varying periodicity and wave-length (the latter being inversely proportional to the former), and that other waves also accompany the various waves of light. Certain waves whose vibratory period is too rapid to affect the retina as light manifest themselves by their power of causing chemical action; while others, whose vibratory period is too slow to affect the retina as light, are manifested as heat.

The various colors which we are able to' distinguish depend upon this variation of vibratory period. While a number of theories have been put forward in explanation of color sensation, the scheme propou'nded by. The great physicist, Dr. Thomas Young and afterward elaborated by Helmholtz is the most satisfactory. According to this theory the various light-waves are divided into three groups: (1) Those of least, (2) those of intermediate and (3) those of greatest rapidity of vibration Each of these groups of waves has its distinctive action upon. The retina. Waves comprised in the first group cause the color red to be seen; those in the second group are productive of green, and those in the third, or most rapid group, give rise to the sensation of blue These three, red, green and blue, are the three primary colors - not because there are only three sets Oi waves (the division of light into these groups being, of course, arbitrary), but because of the limitations of the eye.

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