CHEM 106

While doing this week’s reading, I came across mention of the artist Joseph Albers and how he developed his theory on the perception of color and artistically portrayed it.  I found his artwork to be both fascinating and hard to look at at the same time! So long story short, I decided to research him a bit more and here is what I found!

Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, particularly his work on color perception, formed the basis of some of the most influential art education programs of the twentieth century. He was a sculpter, painter, and architect, and studying two dimensional arts before helping to develop the growing field of graphic design. Albers developed theories on how ideas and emotions could be conveyed through simple geometric shapes and ordinary colors, paving the way for a new type of artistic abstraction. Sometimes known as “the square man,” he made more than 1,000 paintings in his series, Homage to the Square, from 1950 until his death. The quasi-scientific series of paintings focused on optical effects of color within the confines of a uniform square shape. Albers developed a theory on the Interaction of Color which demonstrated such principles as color relativity, intensity, and temperature; vibrating and vanishing boundaries; and the illusion of transparency and reversed grounds; all of which helped to explain the relationship between different colors placed close to one another.

An example of a study included in the Interaction of Color can be found above where the X on the left appears to be a golden sort of yellow and the X on the right appears to be a grayish violet. However, the X’s are the exact same color as seen by the fact that they are connected and are influenced by the contrast of their background color. This process occurs due to the fact that the eye is attempting to focus on both the purple and the yellow backgrounds and processes them by flicking back and forth between the two. The rapid movement creates after images which distort the brains’ perception of color.

Interested in researching how artists can use light, I came upon the kinetic light sculptures of Paul Friedlander. Friedlander is both a light sculptor and a physicist who studied under Nobel-Prize winning physicist Sir Anthony Legett. His works are a perfect example of the intersection between art and science, as he applies scientific concepts to produce innovative and interactive works.

The topic of kinetic art is something incredibly new to me, and sounds like a very contemporary concept. However, according to the Huffington Post article “Kinetic Light Sculptures by Paul Friedlander Merge Science and Art”, Friedlander’s interest in kinetic art started in 1970. In the article “Spectrum of Colors Revealed Through Lit String Vibrations” on www.mymodernmet.com, Friedlander explains his focus on kinetic art. Friedlander states, “”I decided to focus on kinetic art: a subject in which I could bring together my divided background and combine my knowledge of physics with my love of light. In 1983, at London’s ICA, I exhibited the first sculptures to use chromastrobic light, a discovery I had made the previous year.” Chromastrobic light is interesting because it is able to change color at a speed faster than the human eye can see. Friedlander explains that such a speed causes “the appearance of rapidly moving forms to mutate in the most remarkable ways.”

The video included below demonstrates some of Friedlander’s works produced through the use of light and motion; he is able to produce surprisingly beautiful works through very mundane objects. These pieces are created by rotating a piece of string at an extremely fast pace through white light. While the vibrating string moves quickly enough to appear invisible, the colors from the light- that can normally not be caught by the human eye- are rapidly exposed.

https://youtu.be/NUZkdQcK4FM

I am once again astonished how fast light is. 3×10⁸m/second. Then, I started wondering what it would be like if people were able to be as fast as light.  Using the equation of time=distance/speed I calculated how long it will take for a person with the capacity of running at light speed to finish the marathon. Since a marathon is 42.195km long, it will only take 0.000141 seconds to finish the marathon!!! That person will be able to finish the marathon faster than us blinking and will definitely have the world record that will never be broken. After calculating the time, it was clear how fast 3x108m/s is and once again astonished how fast light travels through space.

This week we learned that light exists as a photon particle and that the colors we see are products of absorption and reflection of certain photons. This was especially interesting to observe in the gummy bear experiment that we performed in class. While thinking about how we perceive color,  I began to wonder at what point in time do we become aware of color? Is it something that we always knew?

I came across an article called “Why Johnny can’t name his colors” which focuses on testing young children on their ability to distinguish between colors. The researchers found that many children usually between the ages of three and four, incorrectly identify colors when asked to look for a specific one in a line up. For example if the child is given the choice of three colors and asked to find “blue” he or she will more often than not pick the wrong color.

Does this mean that as children we are colorblind? Not according to the researchers. They found that color is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a physical category. They also state that color is heavily reliant on language, which young children are still trying to grasp which could explain the inconsistencies in naming colors, not in the way the children see them.

I’ve heard of light therapy being used to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is a kind of depression that recurs in late fall and winter. During these seasons, there are fewer hours of light per day. Lower exposure to daylight can impair some people’s ability to sleep at night and negatively influence their mood, and alertness during the day. Lamps designed to mimic ambient light are sometimes used to treat SAD. A  small Norwegian town recently tried to combat SAD by installing 300 square foot mirrors to redirect sunlight. 

Not all lights affect us the same way. Blue wavelengths (emitted from electronics with screens and energy-efficient lights) have been shown to “boost attention, reaction times, and mood”during the day, but can disrupt the sleep cycle at night. According to Harvard researchers, blue light suppresses melatonin, a hormone that regulates the circadian rhythms (or sleep cycles), for about twice as long as green light and shifts circadian rhythms by twice as many hours. Red light is least effective at suppressing melatonin. Researchers suggest avoiding bright screens two to three hours before bed, so that melatonin can be released.

I really enjoyed the experiments with light that we conducted last week! I was surprised to learn that light exists as a particle (called photons) and as a wave, and that we actually were preview to only small part of the electromagnetic spectrum – the visible light spectrum that lies between 400 to 700 nanometers.

While conducting the experiments with gummy bears, it was really interesting to see how adding additional gummy bear in a line could change what we observed. For example, when we passed the red light through the green gummy bears, we expected the red light to be absorbed (as only green light was reflected). However, when we aimed the red laser through just one gummy bear, we were shocked to see that the gummy bear actually turned red! However, we then realized that the intensity of the red laser was too high and when we added additional gummy bears, we got the results that we had expected (no color change).

This experiment got me thinking about how changing the intensity of the light could effect what we view. I would be interested in learning more about this phenomenon – do changes in the intensity of light effect the energy level of the photon particles? Does this have any application in solar power?

CFL bulbs, or the energy saving bulbs touted by many, require mercury to produce light. All told, each bulb requires about 5 miligrams of Mercury- a dangerous heavy metal that must be respected and guarded against as it is toxic in our food and water supplies.

These bulbs require about 25% of the electricity required by their incandescent counterparts. This is due to the way incandescent bulbs light, which is by heating the filament at the center of the bulb to over 2,300 degrees celsius, causing the filament to glow white hot an light the room. However, these CFL bulbs work differently, and do not require heating the bulb white hot. Instead the bulbs are filled with gas and a small amount of Mercury which produces light when the mercury is excited by running between two electrodes in the base of the bulb. They bulb produces ultraviolet light which excites the phosphor coating of the bulb, emitting visible light.

Although at first it may seem frightening that the bulbs are utilizing Mercury, they are actually using less mercury by only using 25% of the energy required by their incandescent partners because our number one source of electricity production, burning coal, releases around 0.0234 mg of mercury—plus carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide—into the air per 1 kwh of electricity. In total, the CFL bulbs contain only 5 milligrams of electricity, so they’re clearly a better option.

So don’t be afraid to spend a little more on bulbs this year! Its totally for a good cause.

Last spring, when I took astronomy 101 we talked a lot about spectra and light. While we discussed the definitions and applications of wavelength, frequency and speed of light waves, what I was most interested in was the different types of spectra of visible light that different objects and/or conditions could produce.

First, it is important to note that sometimes light behaves like a wave while others it behaves like a particle. When light behaves like a particle, each particle is called a photon. Photons carry energy as they travel through space. The amount of energy or photon is directly proportional to the wavelength.

So, what we see by the naked eye under normal conditions is the visible light continuous spectrum of all colors. This spectrum looks like the gradation of colors we saw in class. Different types of spectra include an emission line spectrum, which looks like a dark background with spikes at certain wavelengths indicating certain colors and an absorption line spectrum, which is similar to a continuous spectrum but has some black lines where colors are missing.

Both absorption and emission line spectra appear when gas changes what types of light each atom in a given object or condition can absorb and/or reflect. Further, perceived color in astronomy almost always tells something about the temperature of an object. For example, a hotter object will have a shorter peak wavelength and will thus be brighter at all wavelengths which is why hot stars look blue or white because their peak wavelength is actually in the UV area of the wavelength spectrum while cooler stars appear yellow or red indicating a peak in the infrared part of the spectrum.

Given last week’s lecture about color and reflectivity, I wanted to share an artwork that I experienced while studying abroad in Denmark in the fall of 2013. Situated on top of a cube-shaped museum, called the ARoS in Aarhus, DK, “Your Rainbow Panorama” is an interactive exhibit in which visitors can walk through a raised platform with constantly metamorphosing colored panels. Elevated 3.5 meters above the museum’s roof, the exhibit provides a new experience and way of seeing all of Aarhus, both in height and in color.

The most amazing part of this exhibit is that it can really be catered to anyone’s needs or desires–anyone may stop and stay looking through a particular colored panel, or you can circumnavigate the panorama quickly, allowing the quickly changing colors blur into a tunnel of rainbow. Interestingly, the variety of colors cause ranges of emotion and mood, which I’d be very interested in learning more about.

Another interesting aspect of this exhibition is how it goes with the theme of the museum. Based off of Dante’s Inferno, each level of the museum (organized similarly to the Guggenheim in New York, with slanted levels circling up) corresponds to a level of Hell, Earth, or Heaven. The lowest level of the museum houses dark, melancholy art, while the top level features work about deities and the ephemeral. It is very appropriate for this exhibition to be located on the top of the building, as it extends Dante’s metaphor literally outside of the structure.

You can read about the exhibit here.

In class this week, we talked about how the human eye perceives color based on what wavelengths of white light are reflected from an object. However, what if the light that is hitting the object isn’t white to begin with? As mentioned at the beginning of Light Science Ch. 6, we determine color not just by looking at the object but also by considering the light hitting the object.

Noon-time sunlight is indeed white, but during sunset or twilight the light reflecting off of things isn’t white anymore. This also true of electrical lighting, which can be tinted blue, yellow, or other colors. We can still tell the color of objects under these sorts of light because our brains have adapted in a way that lets us take into account our surroundings when viewing an object. For example, if something looks magenta during blue-lit twilight hours, your brain knows to subtract the blue light and comes to the conclusion that the object would be red in white light, so your brain concludes the object is more likely red than magenta.

This phenomenon – our brain’s interpretation of the surrounding lighting, and how that affects our interpretation of an object’s color – is what led to the dress fiasco earlier this year, as discussed by Prof. Conway in the talk we went to a few weeks back. Many people saw what their brains interpreted as a blue and black dress under yellow-ish lighting, and many others saw a white and gold dress under blue-ish lighting. How can these be the same photo? It’s because some people thought the lining on the dress was shiny gold with black shadows, and others thought it was matte black with yellow highlights from the yellow lighting. Likewise, some thought the blue dress was mostly unaffected by the yellow lighting, while others though the white dress looked blue-ish because of blue lighting.

The most interesting part of this phenomenon is that it is entirely unconscious – we don’t notice our brains making these subtractions and interpretations. We only see a color, and don’t bother to think about whether our brains might have miscalculated.