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Newton's_colour_circle.png (400 × 385 pixels, file size: 66 KB, MIME type: image/png)

Summary

Description
English: "In a mixture of primary colours, the quantity and quality of each being given, to know the colour of the compound."

Throughout Opticks, Newton compared colours in the spectrum to a run of musical notes. To this purpose, he used a Dorian mode, similar to a white-note scale on the piano, starting at D. He divided his colour wheel in musical proportions round the circumference, in the arcs from DE to CD. Each segment was given a spectral colour, starting from red at DE, through orange, yellow, green, blew [sic], indigo, to violet in CD. (The colours are commonly known as ROY G BIV.)

The middle of the colours—their 'centres of gravity'—are shown by p, q, r, s, t, u, and x. The centre of the circle, at O, was presumed to be white. Newton went on to describe how a non-spectral colour, such as z, could be described by its distance from O and the corresponding spectral colour, Y.

A higher resolution image of this would be nice, if someone has access to one.
Date
Source Opticks, 4th ed., 1730. From Book I, Part II, Proposition VI, Problem 2. This figure is nearly unchanged from that in the 1704 first-edition printing.
Author Isaac Newton

Licensing

Public domain

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Original upload log

The original description page was here. All following user names refer to en.wikipedia.
  • 2008-01-06 08:54 Dicklyon 398×394× (20319 bytes) Slightly better version
  • 2006-08-12 00:01 Srleffler 0×0× (8092 bytes) Newton's colour circle, showing the colours correlated with musical notes and symbols for the known bodies within the solar system. A higher resolution image of this would be nice, if someone has access to one. (version lost by MediaWiki)

Captions

Newtons color wheel

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

image/png

File history

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Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current03:03, 29 October 2019Thumbnail for version as of 03:03, 29 October 2019400 × 385 (66 KB)Sam Van KootenReplaced with a higher-quality version taken from the Project Gutenberg eBook of the 1730 4th-edition printing of Opticks.
13:11, 23 December 2018Thumbnail for version as of 13:11, 23 December 2018398 × 394 (32 KB)Qpoi9762I removed spots.
16:17, 5 March 2010Thumbnail for version as of 16:17, 5 March 2010398 × 394 (20 KB)Maximkaaa{{Information |Description={{en|1="In a mixture of primary colours, the quantity and quality of each being given, to know the colour of the compound." Throughout ''Opticks'', Newton compared colours in the spectrum to a run of musical no

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