Abstract
THE classic theory of colour vision due to Young and developed by Helmholtz and Maxwell attributes the observed phenomena to three sensations (red, green, and violet), but does not enter into detail as to the type of mechanism involved in their stimulus and response. In the days before the discovery of the electron, it was unlikely that any hypothesis of syntony (or sympathetic vibratory response) should be developed for the eye, because nothing was then known of vibrators capable of such high frequencies as those involved in the visible spectrum. But it is now open to us to attempt a syntonic hypothesis of colour vision, since so much more is known as to the constitution of the atom and the behaviour of the electrons. The fundamental facts which recommend the resonance theory of hearing are the smallness and rapidity of those motions which constitute the external stimulus of audition. But how much stronger is the argument based on the corresponding facts for vision ! For in vision we are concerned with the frequencies of light, many millions of millions per second, and with displacements correspondingly minute. Further, we now know that in all receptions for wireless telegraphy there must be the tuning of a sympathetic vibrator before the detection of the excessively minute and rapidly alternating disturbances which constitute the signal.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
BARTON, E. Colour Vision and Syntony. Nature 110, 357–359 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110357a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110357a0