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E CON Resources
Newton's Colour Disk
Materials Required :
Paper
Scissors
Sketch Pens/ Markers/ Crayons
Ruler
Pencil
A CD or something similar to draw a circle
Glue or cello tape
A cardboard piece (to cut out the circle)
The renowned mathematician Sir Isaac Newton invented the first color wheel. While studying white light reflecting off prisms, he noticed that the light reflected a spectrum of colors. Noting down the different hues, he believed the rainbow of colors shared a harmonious relationship. Following that train of thought, he compared the hues to music to discover the harmonious relationship between each hue. He identified each hue with a corresponding musical note. The then arranged those musical notes into a square, and then finally placed the colors on a rotating disk to see how they interact with each other visually. And that’s the story of the ideation behind the first color wheel.
Fun fact: When you spin the color wheel, the human eye will only see white as the colors blend together.
This disc can be made by creating a color wheel and spinning it very fast.
MAKER PERSONALITY OF THE WEEK
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday made many notable contributions to chemistry and electricity. When the great scientist Sir Humphry Davy was asked what he considered his greatest discovery, he answered, “Michael Faraday.”
Faraday was born in Newington, Surrey, England, on Sept. 22, 1791. The son of a blacksmith, he was apprenticed to a bookbinder at age 14 and read all the scientific books in the shop. Young Faraday attended lectures by Sir Humphry Davy. He made careful notes and sent them to Davy, asking for a job. Impressed by the boy’s zeal, the scientist took Faraday into his laboratory as an assistant.
Acting on hints from Davy, he succeeded in liquefying gas by compression. When he discovered the hydrocarbon benzene in 1825, he became the father of an entire branch of organic chemistry. His laws of electrolysis, formulated in 1833, linked chemistry and electricity
Faraday’s greatest achievement was the discovery of electromagnetic induction. He found in 1831 that when he moved a magnet through a coil of wire, a current was produced. From this discovery the electric generator—the heart of all modern electric power plants—was developed.