The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
One must not suppose that these beautiful forms exist only in the
laboratory. Every time we speak, spherical waves bounce off the floor,
ceiling and walls of the room, while in any ordinary bowl or basin
the curious crater-shaped echoes are formed. Glance once more at the
wave surfaces produced within a hollow sphere, and try to imagine the
complexity of the aerial vibrations caused by a fly buzzing around in
an empty water-caraffe! The photographs enable us to realize what is
going on around us all the time--this our perceptions are fortunately
too dull to perceive. Life would be a nightmare if we were obliged to
see the myriads of flying sound waves bounding and rebounding about
us in every direction, and combining into grotesque and ever-changing
forms. It is just as well, on the whole, that the light of the electric
spark and the delicate optical device of Toepler are necessary to bring
them into view.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RED.
BY HAVELOCK ELLIS.
Among all colors, the most poignantly emotional tone undoubtedly
belongs to red. The ancient observation concerning the resemblance
of scarlet to the notes of a trumpet has often been repeated, though
it was probably unknown to the young Japanese lady who, on hearing a
boy sing in a fine contralto voice, exclaimed: “That boy’s voice is
red.” On the one hand, red is the color that idiots most easily learn
to recognize; on the other hand, Kirchhoff, the chemist, called it
the most aristocratic of colors; Pouchet, the zoölogist, was inclined
to think that it was a color apart, not to be paralleled with any
other chromatic sensation, and recalled that the retinal pigment is
red; Laycock, the physician, confessed that he preferred the gorgeous
red tints of an autumn sunset to either musical sounds or gustatory
flavors. Artists more cautious than men of science in expressing such
a preference--knowing that a color possesses its special virtue in
relation to other colors, and that all are of infinite variety--yet
easily reveal, one may often note, a predilection for red by
introducing it into scenes where it is not naturally obvious, whether
we turn to a great landscape painter like Constable or to a great
figure painter like Rubens, who, with the development of his genius,
displayed even greater daring in the introduction of red pigments into
his work.
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