(7) My (Brief) Career in Experimental Physics

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In a spirit of, I thought at the time, reasonably objective scientific inquiry, I devised a way to check what would happen if beams of light in the colors I considered primary were actually to he combined.

I located a gizmo designed for graphic artists, which helped them see what percentages of each of the three primary printers' colors (magenta-red, blue, and yellow) they would need to produce a given shade.  The device was based on overlapping sheets of translucent plastic in each of the three  printers' primary colors.  I was able to remove the three separate plastic sheets and place them over pinholes in three mini-floodlights.   Then I shone the lights against a white wall in a darkened room.

--All right, it was actually a darkened garage.

I know that “room” sounds more scientific, even Newtonesque;  but anyone with toddlers the age that mine were will understand the intense interest that can be generated by such an undertaking, as well as the general disregard for proper experimental technique.  At any rate, I believe the results obtained in a scientifically darkened room would be essentially similar to those obtained in a crankishly darkened garage.

Although my results were not entirely conclusive, they at least contained no major surprises for me.  The colored lights combined with one another to yield pretty much the effects I had thought they would. 

I thus managed to at least somewhat diminish the "hooey factor" associated with my paintings.

© COPYRIGHT 1993 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.