Opticks

by Isaac Newton

Lastly, If with the Teeth of a Comb of a due Size, the coloured Lights of the two Prisms which fall upon the Space PT be alternately intercepted, that Space PT, when the Motion of the Comb is slow, will always appear coloured, but by accelerating the Motion of the Comb so much that the successive Colours cannot be distinguished from one another, it will appear white.

Exper. 14. Hitherto I have produced Whiteness by mixing the Colours of Prisms. If now the Colours of natural Bodies are to be mingled, let Water a little thicken'd with Soap be agitated to raise a Froth, and after that Froth has stood a little, there will appear to one that shall view it intently various Colours every where in the Surfaces of the several Bubbles; but to one that shall go so far off, that he cannot distinguish the Colours from one another, the whole Froth will grow white with a perfect Whiteness.

Exper. 15. Lastly, In attempting to compound a white, by mixing the coloured Powders which Painters use, I consider'd that all colour'd Powders do suppress and stop in them a very considerable Part of the Light by which they are illuminated. For they become colour'd by reflecting the Light of their own Colours more copiously, and that of all other Colours more sparingly, and yet they do not reflect the Light of their own Colours so copiously as white Bodies do. If red Lead, for instance, and a white Paper, be placed in the red Light of the colour'd Spectrum made in a dark Chamber by the Refraction of a Prism, as is described in the third Experiment of the first Part of this Book; the Paper will appear more lucid than the red Lead, and therefore reflects the red-making Rays more copiously than red Lead doth. And if they be held in the Light of any other Colour, the Light reflected by the Paper will exceed the Light reflected by the red Lead in a much greater Proportion. And the like happens in Powders of other Colours. And therefore by mixing such Powders, we are not to expect a strong and full White, such as is that of Paper, but some dusky obscure one, such as might arise from a Mixture of Light and Darkness, or from white and black, that is, a grey, or dun, or russet brown, such as are the Colours of a Man's Nail, of a Mouse, of Ashes, of ordinary Stones, of Mortar, of Dust and Dirt in High-ways, and the like. And such a dark white I have often produced by mixing colour'd Powders. For thus one Part of red Lead, and five Parts of Viride Æris, composed a dun Colour like that of a Mouse. For these two Colours were severally so compounded of others, that in both together were a Mixture of all Colours; and there was less red Lead used than Viride Æris, because of the Fulness of its Colour. Again, one Part of red Lead, and four Parts of blue Bise, composed a dun Colour verging a little to purple, and by adding to this a certain Mixture of Orpiment and Viride Æris in a due Proportion, the Mixture lost its purple Tincture, and became perfectly dun. But the Experiment succeeded best without Minium thus. To Orpiment I added by little and little a certain full bright purple, which Painters use, until the Orpiment ceased to be yellow, and became of a pale red. Then I diluted that red by adding a little Viride Æris, and a little more blue Bise than Viride Æris, until it became of such a grey or pale white, as verged to no one of the Colours more than to another. For thus it became of a Colour equal in Whiteness to that of Ashes, or of Wood newly cut, or of a Man's Skin. The Orpiment reflected more Light than did any other of the Powders, and therefore conduced more to the Whiteness of the compounded Colour than they. To assign the Proportions accurately may be difficult, by reason of the different Goodness of Powders of the same kind. Accordingly, as the Colour of any Powder is more or less full and luminous, it ought to be used in a less or greater Proportion.

Now, considering that these grey and dun Colours may be also produced by mixing Whites and Blacks, and by consequence differ from perfect Whites, not in Species of Colours, but only in degree of Luminousness, it is manifest that there is nothing more requisite to make them perfectly white than to increase their Light sufficiently; and, on the contrary, if by increasing their Light they can be brought to perfect Whiteness, it will thence also follow, that they are of the same Species of Colour with the best Whites, and differ from them only in the Quantity of Light. And this I tried as follows. I took the third of the above-mention'd grey Mixtures, (that which was compounded of Orpiment, Purple, Bise, and Viride Æris) and rubbed it thickly upon the Floor of my Chamber, where the Sun shone upon it through the opened Casement; and by it, in the shadow, I laid a Piece of white Paper of the same Bigness. Then going from them to the distance of 12 or 18 Feet, so that I could not discern the Unevenness of the Surface of the Powder, nor the little Shadows let fall from the gritty Particles thereof; the Powder appeared intensely white, so as to transcend even the Paper it self in Whiteness, especially if the Paper were a little shaded from the Light of the Clouds, and then the Paper compared with the Powder appeared of such a grey Colour as the Powder had done before. But by laying the Paper where the Sun shines through the Glass of the Window, or by shutting the Window that the Sun might shine through the Glass upon the Powder, and by such other fit Means of increasing or decreasing the Lights wherewith the Powder and Paper were illuminated, the Light wherewith the Powder is illuminated may be made stronger in such a due Proportion than the Light wherewith the Paper is illuminated, that they shall both appear exactly alike in Whiteness. For when I was trying this, a Friend coming to visit me, I stopp'd him at the Door, and before I told him what the Colours were, or what I was doing; I asked him, Which of the two Whites were the best, and wherein they differed? And after he had at that distance viewed them well, he answer'd, that they were both good Whites, and that he could not say which was best, nor wherein their Colours differed. Now, if you consider, that this White of the Powder in the Sun-shine was compounded of the Colours which the component Powders (Orpiment, Purple, Bise, and Viride Æris) have in the same Sun-shine, you must acknowledge by this Experiment, as well as by the former, that perfect Whiteness may be compounded of Colours.

From what has been said it is also evident, that the Whiteness of the Sun's Light is compounded of all the Colours wherewith the several sorts of Rays whereof that Light consists, when by their several Refrangibilities they are separated from one another, do tinge Paper or any other white Body whereon they fall. For those Colours (by Prop. II. Part 2.) are unchangeable, and whenever all those Rays with those their Colours are mix'd again, they reproduce the same white Light as before.

PROP. VI. Prob. II.

In a mixture of Primary Colours, the Quantity and Quality of each being given, to know the Colour of the Compound.

Fig. 11.

With the Center O [in Fig. 11.] and Radius OD describe a Circle ADF, and distinguish its Circumference into seven Parts DE, EF, FG, GA, AB, BC, CD, proportional to the seven Musical Tones or Intervals of the eight Sounds, Sol, la, fa, sol, la, mi, fa, sol, contained in an eight, that is, proportional to the Number 1/9, 1/16, 1/10, 1/9, 1/16, 1/16, 1/9. Let the first Part DE represent a red Colour, the second EF orange, the third FG yellow, the fourth CA green, the fifth AB blue, the sixth BC indigo, and the seventh CD violet. And conceive that these are all the Colours of uncompounded Light gradually passing into one another, as they do when made by Prisms; the Circumference DEFGABCD, representing the whole Series of Colours from one end of the Sun's colour'd Image to the other, so that from D to E be all degrees of red, at E the mean Colour between red and orange, from E to F all degrees of orange, at F the mean between orange and yellow, from F to G all degrees of yellow, and so on. Let p be the Center of Gravity of the Arch DE, and q, r, s, t, u, x, the Centers of Gravity of the Arches EF, FG, GA, AB, BC, and CD respectively, and about those Centers of Gravity let Circles proportional to the Number of Rays of each Colour in the given Mixture be describ'd: that is, the Circle p proportional to the Number of the red-making Rays in the Mixture, the Circle q proportional to the Number of the orange-making Rays in the Mixture, and so of the rest. Find the common Center of Gravity of all those Circles, p, q, r, s, t, u, x. Let that Center be Z; and from the Center of the Circle ADF, through Z to the Circumference, drawing the Right Line OY, the Place of the Point Y in the Circumference shall shew the Colour arising from the Composition of all the Colours in the given Mixture, and the Line OZ shall be proportional to the Fulness or Intenseness of the Colour, that is, to its distance from Whiteness. As if Y fall in the middle between F and G, the compounded Colour shall be the best yellow; if Y verge from the middle towards F or G, the compound Colour shall accordingly be a yellow, verging towards orange or green. If Z fall upon the Circumference, the Colour shall be intense and florid in the highest Degree; if it fall in the mid-way between the Circumference and Center, it shall be but half so intense, that is, it shall be such a Colour as would be made by diluting the intensest yellow with an equal quantity of whiteness; and if it fall upon the center O, the Colour shall have lost all its intenseness, and become a white. But it is to be noted, That if the point Z fall in or near the line OD, the main ingredients being the red and violet, the Colour compounded shall not be any of the prismatick Colours, but a purple, inclining to red or violet, accordingly as the point Z lieth on the side of the line DO towards E or towards C, and in general the compounded violet is more bright and more fiery than the uncompounded. Also if only two of the primary Colours which in the circle are opposite to one another be mixed in an equal proportion, the point Z shall fall upon the center O, and yet the Colour compounded of those two shall not be perfectly white, but some faint anonymous Colour. For I could never yet by mixing only two primary Colours produce a perfect white. Whether it may be compounded of a mixture of three taken at equal distances in the circumference I do not know, but of four or five I do not much question but it may. But these are Curiosities of little or no moment to the understanding the Phænomena of Nature. For in all whites produced by Nature, there uses to be a mixture of all sorts of Rays, and by consequence a composition of all Colours.