16. General English skills – an idea for general discussion: “The White Rabbit”, - books and authors we like.

17. Have fun!

Fig.1 The scintillating grid illusion

Schrauf, M., Lingelbach, B., & Wist, E.R. (1997)

Fig. 2 Do you see waves?

Akiyoshi Kitaoka illusion, 2002

Fig. 3 Are the horizontal lines parallel?

Richard Gregory, “Wall” café, Bristol, 1979

UNIT 2

1. Warm-up:

a) What scientists that investigated colours can you name?

b) What “colour” terms do you remember?

2. Text for oral translation and brief retelling.

The Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages, Paracelsus reintroduced the knowledge and philosophy of colour using the power of the colour rays for healing along with music and herbs. Unfortunately, most of his manuscripts were burnt, but now he is thought of, by many, to be one of the greatest doctors and healers of his time. A man, it would seem, very much ahead of his time.

Issac Newton (1642 - 1727). A pioneer in the field of colour, Isaac Newton in 1672, published his first, controversial paper on colour, and forty years later, his work Opticks. Newton passed a beam of sunlight through a prism. When the light came out of the prism is was not white but was of seven different colours: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. The spreading into rays was called dispersion by Newton and he called the different coloured rays the spectrum. He learnt that when the light rays were passed again through a prism the rays turned back into white light. If only one ray was passed through the prism it would come out the same colour as it went in. Newton concluded that white light was made up of seven different coloured rays.

Development of theories of colour vision In 1810, Goethe published his comprehensive Theory of Colours. In 1801 Thomas Young proposed his trichromatic theory, based on the observation that any colour could be matched with a combination of three lights. 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. 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." In 1931, an international group of experts known as the Commission Internationale d'Eclairage (CIE) developed a mathematical colour model, which mapped out the space of observable colours and assigned a set of three numbers to each.

The future of Colour. We are now using colour in very positive ways again. Businesses are accepting that their employees may work better given a certain environment and hospitals and prisons are also becoming aware of the effect that the colour around them can have on patients and prisoners respectively. Paint companies have introduced new colour cards with the therapeutic aspects of colour in mind. Cosmetic companies too have “colour therapy” ranges included in their products. Colour has a great deal to offer us and can be found all around us in nature.