Development of theories of color vision

Development of theories of color vision

Although Aristotle and other ancient scientistsAM2908 had already written on the nature of light and color vision, it was not until Newton that light was identified as the source of the color sensation. In 1810, Goethe published5Q0765RT his comprehensive Theory of Colors. In 1801 Thomas Young proposed his trichromatic theory, based on the observation that any color could be matched with a combination of three lights.4921QP1041B-H This theory was later refined by James Clerk Maxwell and Hermann von Helmholtz. As Helmholtz puts it, "the principles of Newton's law of mixture were experimentally confirmed by Maxwell in 1856.PAC007A Young's theory of color sensations, like so much else that this marvellous investigator achieved in advance of his time, remained unnoticed until Maxwell directed attention to it.Ultimately these two theories were synthesizedAT45DB161D-SU in 1957 by Hurvich and Jameson, who showed that retinal processing corresponds to the trichromatic theory, while processing at the level of the lateral geniculate nucleus corresponds to the opponent theory.