I've always been fascinated by light. It probably all started with the attentive observation of rainbows, oil on water puddles, and soap bubbles.
That may actually be the difference between a "normal" kid and a future scientist. The one who doesn't only make soap bubbles for fun, but observes their moving and changing colors and admires the sphere's perfection. S/he doesn't make big bubbles to impress her/his classmates, but rather to understand why they always end up exploding...
Newton was accused of destroying the beauty of rainbows by having separated white light into its spectral components explained the origin of its colors... This was contradicting the then widely accepted ideas about colors inherited from Aristotle. Goethe is mostly known for his contribution to literature, but he also worked on colors and light. He also strongly rejected Newton's discovery and sticked to Aristotle idea that colors arise from light and dark - the idea that adding red and blue lights would result in magenta light was hard to conceive. He's still an important contributor to color theory even though he thought colors should be left to artists and couldn't be explained by mathematics and science. It's not only about rainbows... it's about the ongoing debate that trying to understand the subtle mechanisms of nature will destroy its magic and beauty. I let you figure out where I stand!
What's even more fascinating about "light" is its subjectivity. The human will naturally consider that visible light captured by her/his eyes is a different phenomenon than radioactivity, the heat of the sun on her/his skin, or the waves carrying his/her favorite morning radio show, while it's basically the same radiation whose energy is the only changing property... This subjectivity is also present in the theory of physics, each phenomenon being historically studied independently. Science is subjective.
See? I did it again. If I don't grab some paper and my favorite fountain pen to write a plan and throw a couple of keywords prior to writing, my thought live their own life, I digress, and forget my starting point. Which was, I think, to define the future editorial line of this blog... What's at least pretty obvious is that optics and light will have their place here...
The title is more a reference to this famous t-shirt than the Bible...
That may actually be the difference between a "normal" kid and a future scientist. The one who doesn't only make soap bubbles for fun, but observes their moving and changing colors and admires the sphere's perfection. S/he doesn't make big bubbles to impress her/his classmates, but rather to understand why they always end up exploding...
Newton was accused of destroying the beauty of rainbows by having separated white light into its spectral components explained the origin of its colors... This was contradicting the then widely accepted ideas about colors inherited from Aristotle. Goethe is mostly known for his contribution to literature, but he also worked on colors and light. He also strongly rejected Newton's discovery and sticked to Aristotle idea that colors arise from light and dark - the idea that adding red and blue lights would result in magenta light was hard to conceive. He's still an important contributor to color theory even though he thought colors should be left to artists and couldn't be explained by mathematics and science. It's not only about rainbows... it's about the ongoing debate that trying to understand the subtle mechanisms of nature will destroy its magic and beauty. I let you figure out where I stand!
What's even more fascinating about "light" is its subjectivity. The human will naturally consider that visible light captured by her/his eyes is a different phenomenon than radioactivity, the heat of the sun on her/his skin, or the waves carrying his/her favorite morning radio show, while it's basically the same radiation whose energy is the only changing property... This subjectivity is also present in the theory of physics, each phenomenon being historically studied independently. Science is subjective.
See? I did it again. If I don't grab some paper and my favorite fountain pen to write a plan and throw a couple of keywords prior to writing, my thought live their own life, I digress, and forget my starting point. Which was, I think, to define the future editorial line of this blog... What's at least pretty obvious is that optics and light will have their place here...
The title is more a reference to this famous t-shirt than the Bible...
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