Magic Metamorphoses

I think it would be appropriate at this stage to describe a series of illuminating experiments conducted at the science for entertainment Pavilion of the Leningrad recreation park. A corner of the Pavilion furnished as a parlor. It is furnisher was covered with dark- orange antimacassars, the table was laid with green baize, on which there stood a decanter full of cranberry juice and a vase with flowers in it, and there was a shelf full of books with colored inscriptions on their bindings. The visitors first saw the “parlor” lit by ordinary white electric light. When the ordinary light turned off and a red light switched on in its stead, the orange covers turned pink and the green tablecloth a dark purple. Mean while the cranberry juice lost its color and looked like water; the flowers in the vase changed in hue and seemed different; and some inscriptions on the book bindings vanished without trace. Another flick of the switch and green light went on. The “parlor” again transformed beyond recognition. These magic metamorphoses well illustrate Newton’s theory of color, the gist of which is that a surface always possesses the color of the rays it diffuses, rather than of the rays it absorbs. This is how Newton’s compatriot, the celebrated British physicist John Tyndall, formulated the point.