Interesting historic texts, now available in English!
Note: All of the documents on this page are copyrighted by the
respective authors. They may be downloaded for educational or
instructional purposes, but not for resale or commercial purposes.
Aus dem Gebiet der Farbreizmetrik (On color stimulus metrics),
by Robert Luther, Zeitschrift für technische Physik 8 (1927) 540-558
An English translation with a short biographical introduction by
Rolf G. Kuehni and a technical introduction by Michael H. Brill
Translation and biography © 2009 Rolf G. Kuehni.
Technical introduction © 2009 by Michael H. Brill.
Philipp Otto Runge’s Color Sphere
Philipp Otto Runge´s FarbenKugel (Color sphere) of 1810
was a seminal contribution to the development of three-dimensional
color order systems. Within the year of its publication Runge, at
age 33, succumbed to tuberculosis. The model of the color sphere,
based on the interaction of three chromatic (yellow, red, and
blue) and two achromatic (white and black) fundamentals
represents the next step in three-dimensional color order
after Tobias Mayer’s double tetrahedral solid of 1756 and
Johann Heinrich Lambert’s single tetrahedron of 1772.
Translation and essay © 2009
Rolf G. Kuehni.
Theorie
der Pigmente von größter Leuchtkraft (Theorie of pigments of greatest lightness), by Erwin Schrödinger.
Annalen der Physik 4, 62 (1920) 603-622
An English translation with a short biographical introduction by Rolf G. Kuehni and a technical introduction by Michael H. Brill.
Original paper ©Wiley-VCH Verlag, Weinheim, Germany;
Translation and biographical introduction © 2010 Rolf G. Kuehni;
Technical introduction © 2010 Michael H. Brill.
As is well known, the color of the light reflected from a painted pigment layer never reaches the same degree of saturation that pure spectral lights have, but always appears more or less whitish compared to the pure light of the same hue. It can be generated from the pure light with the addition of a certain amount of white light. The impossibility of realizing colors of spectral saturation with pigments is not a technical problem but to a degree fundamental. Its cause is that the mixture of two spectral lights that in the spectrum are located not too far from each other have, in mixture, a specific hue that lies between those of the two components but, in general, is more whitish than that of the spectral light. To obtain the full saturation of a spectral light the pigment would have to reflect only an infinitesimally narrow wavelength range and absorb all others. But, as already Helmholtz mentioned, its appearance would be very dark, in the limiting case black.
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