 |
|
|
Newton's Theory of Colour is False
Posted by: Lucien on http://PEJ.org Wednesday, October 13, 2004 - 07:57 PM
3733 Reads
|
|
|
| |
Following the article I published in the Montreal daily newspaper Le Devoir on February 26, 1986 concerning anti-Black prejudice in the West, the newspaper received reactions from all over Canada, both from the Black community and from scientific circles. Most people who reached me, while completely agreeing with me in my analysis of the deep causes of those prejudices, stated that they were not fully satisfied with what I said about the harmfulness of these prejudices in the scientific field, especially when I mentioned, as an example of that contagion, Newton?s Theory of colors.
NEWTON?S THEORY OF COLORS IS FALSE
Since not enough space was available in the paper, I could not express my point of view in detail. So I will now give a concise demonstration of why Newton?s Theory of Colors is false.
First of all, what is Newton?s Theory of Colors? Let me remind readers that the concept of ?color? that stems from scientific experimentation is based on the demonstration in 1665 by the well-known scientist Isaac Newton.
This experiment consists in running a visible light ray called ?white light? through a prism in a dark room, breaking down that light into a continuous spectrum encompassing all the colors.
Newton thought he had there by proven that white light is broken down by the prism into a series of seven refracted rays which produced the colors from red to violet on the screen on which they are projected. He therefore concluded that white light contains various lights, each one of which is darker than the white light itself and each of which is part of the whole. And the darkest of all (real blackness), according to Newton, is simply an absence of light.
My point of view, which is shared by many scientists, is that when the dark room, which is actually black, is penetrated by the ?visible light ray?, it turns into an area with a mixture of darkness and white light, so that it is no longer a ?dark room?. This is the origin of ?Newton?s error?, which is the result of an incorrect observation.
In other words, the basic elements of his experiment are not what he thought they were: in the course of the experiment, we are actually dealing with a quasi-dark or quasi-white room. Consequently, the prism in that quasi-dark room reflects the real situation; that is to say, the prism itself is already under the influence of this mixture of white light and darkness. That fact escaped Newton?s notice.
In fact, the prism in the dark room where the experiment was carried out receives darkness from one angle and a beam of white light from the other. The prism thereby puts these two elements into action. The incident light ray is transformed, softened under the effect of the surrounding shade. Acting as a wave mixer, the prism integrates the white light and the darkness. It synthesizes them in vitro based on a given degree in the well-known ?Gray scale? used in photography and color television. Under the effect of the incident ray, which acts like a projector, the refracted, very subtle gray ray passes through the prism. The continuous spectrum of all the colors is formed in a quasi-dark room on a quasi-white screen, given that the spectrum was born of both white light and darkness.
We therefore find that the continuous color scale, as we know it, is constituted by the breaking down, not of white light, but a mixture of white light and darkness ? that is, of ?gray?. As the German scholar Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: ?This is the proof of the existence of the law where by light is nothing else than a mixture of light and darkness, to different degrees.? [our translation] Thus, Newton?s theory of colors proves to be completely false.
Nevertheless, the techniques used in industries dealing with photography, cinematography and television are still based on that erroneous theory.
In photography, laboratories are quick to discover in their work that the sum of the colors of the spectrum is gray, not white. That is why they are compelled to introduce the black color to obtain the white. There you have a demonstration in reverse that black is an integral part of light and color processes. Remember that this fact completely escaped Newton?s notice. Unfortunately, even though, in their use and application of the color scale, photo labs notice Newton?s error and correct it in practice, they still do not make the error more widely known.
Why ?
Some people might say that big industries using color processes ? printing, photography, movies, television and even microprocessors ? keep to that erroneous theory for the sake of major financial interests, especially concerning patents and trade secrets. In addition, certain anti-Black prejudices, deeply rooted in Western culture as well as in the field of optics, have to be taken into account at this ?phase of rest and almost stagnation, rather than theoretical progress?.
It is then up to the scientific world today ? researchers, university professors, etc. ? to overcome such hindrances and correct Newton?s theory, in order to free the way for progress.
Lucien Bonnet
Article published in the Montreal daily newspaper Le Devoir on April 15, 1986. The author of the article, a
Haitian-born Montrealer, has made a movie entitled ?O? vas-tu, Haiti?? (?Where are you Headed, Haiti??).
COLORS, OPTICS, AND RACISM
What if you were asked to upset all the painfully learned laws of optics? What if you were presented with the hypothesis that white was the absence of all colors, instead of the accumulation of all colors?
Mr. Lucien Bonnet, a Haitian-born Montrealer and a self-made specialist in the field of optics, states with conviction that blackness is an integral part of the light and color process; he has had a lot of trouble getting laboratories to give him exact copies of photos in which the superposition of films (yellow, magenta, gray and cyan) produces a black contour, even though the picture was taken in broad daylight.
Why does Mr. Bonnet keep on insisting on this point? Behind the scenes at the 17th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, he kept hammering on that unorthodox theory, which, if it were adopted, would condemn to oblivion a number of authors of physics textbooks.
Mr. Bonnet has written to Professor Carl Sagan, a NASA astrophysicist. He has seen to it that this letter was published and he still believes that the scientific world as a whole ? especially the world of optics ? is not particularly interested in verifying all hypotheses.
Optics, he writes, ?is the exclusive preserve of the scientific world, that beloved field whose seemingly complicated and dangerous approaches are actually transparently obvious.?
We may easily guess that, through his research, Mr. Bonnet is trying to set right people?s perspectives, to get to the very bottom of anti-Black racism. He says, ?The bottom of things is veiled by ways of thinking? and ?Sometimes, facts are so obvious that they ?hit you in the eye? but, like ostriches, people bury their heads in the sand.?
Will Mr. Bonnet?s persistence overcome what he calls ?aberrant scientific taboos?? He is, of course, aware of Asimov?s work on Black Holes. Professor Sagan had already let it be known, in everyday language, that scientists had felt depressed when they found out that the lunar sky was black? So they had better base their work on Mars with its pink sky!
?Thinkers like Jacquard may praise differences, but the impact of such statements does not succeed in shaking the scientific and industrial establishment ? who can measure the true influence of Kodak? ? which is quite comfortable in its Newtonian strait jacket,? says Mr. Bonnet. However, he pays tribute to the researcher?s mentality of his former teachers, the Fathers of the Holy Ghost, who did not hesitate to give him high marks, even though his work ran counter to the official teachings.
Cl?ment Trudel
Article published in the Montreal daily newspaper Le Devoir on Saturday, August 25, 1979.
Lucien Bonnet
Je suis du groupe d'?ge du Premier Ministre du Canada qui a pr?sid? aux destin?es du pays de 1993 ? 2003, le Tr?s Honorable Jean Chr?tien.
Oui ! Je l'ai c?toy? pendant un an, vers 1954-1955, comme ?tudiant et finissant au S?minaire Saint-Joseph de Trois-Rivi?res. J'?tais le seul ?tudiant ha?tien trifluvien ? cette ?poque et sans doute il s'en souvient? Peut-?tre ! Mais alors moi, le petit gars d'Ha?ti, je me souviens et comment du Petit Gars de Shawinigan ! Comment voulez-vous que cela s'oublie, l'image visuelle qui m'est rest?e de lui ? Il ?tait pour moi ? cette ?poque le seul ?tudiant que j'ai connu qui faisait des blagues en cour de r?cr?ation avec au coin des l?vres son ins?parable pipe !
Bien s?r, de nos jours, il s'en est s?par?e, alors que moi, c'est de 1959 ? 1962 que je me suis s?par? du Qu?bec et du Canada pour rentrer en Ha?ti, travailler ? T?l?-Ha?ti. Cela, ce s?jour de trois-ans ? Port-au-Prince, a certainement modifi? le cercle de mes amis et connaissances. Du c?t? trifluvien comme ailleurs. Ce va et vient, j'allais dire oblig? dans le temps ou le pass? entre Ha?ti et le Canada, a s?rement ?t? pour moi l'occasion d'exp?riences qualifi?es aujourd'hui d'inhabituelles.
De Trois-Rivi?res en particulier comme si c'?tait d'hier certains faits me reviennent ? la m?moire.
Le Directeur du coll?ge, avec grande coutoisie, me trouva non loin une pension de famille. Pour suivre mes cours au coll?ge, il fallait bien que je sois log? et nourri. J'avais dix-neuf ans. J'aspirais, dans mes loisirs de fins de semaine, ? me distraire avec les jeunes de mon ?ge. Mes compagnons de classe ?taient sympathiques. Comme en p?riode de r?cr?ation, quand arrive le samedi je souhaitais ?changer et frayer avec eux, les revoir dans leur milieu familial. Ainsi, les copains de Trois-Rivi?res m'ont-ils fait visiter les Bournival ? Saint-?tienne-des-Gr?s, les Chr?tien et les Trudel ? Shawinigan.
Lucien Bonnet
Comme le montre ce site (http://www.contact-canadahaiti.ca), Lucien Bonnet se r?v?le ici comme ?tant un adepte ?prouv? de ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler, en Sciences de la Communication, l'?conomie du Don.
On le voit ici :
tant?t en compagnie de ses condisciples lors de la collation des grades ? l'Universit? de Montr?al le 19 juin 2002 ;
tant?t entour? des membres de sa famille qui se joignent ? lui en cette soir?e de remise des dipl?mes ;
tant?t au milieu du Recteur et de la Vice Doyenne qui pr?sident cette c?r?monie haute en pens?es et en couleurs qui clot?re ces ann?es d'?tudes et de formation ? la Facult? des Arts et des Sciences de l'Universit? de Montr?al.
Curriculum Vitae
Renseignements personnels
Nom : Lucien Bonnet
Adresse : 4390, boulevard Samson App.1
Laval, Qu?bec, Canada
H7W 2G9
T?l?phone : (450) 687-8406
?tat civil : Mari? (2 enfants)
Lieu de naissance : Moron (J?r?mie) - Ha?ti
Formation
?tudes Universitaires :
1998 - 2002 :
Universit? de Montr?al, Qu?bec, Canada
Facult? des Arts et des Sciences
Baccalaur?at sp?cialis? en Science de la Communication.
1965 - 1967
1956 - 1958 :
Universit? de Montr?al, Qu?bec, Canada
D?partement de Sciences Politiques
?tudes et cr?dits accumul?s
en vue de baccalaur?at en Sciences Politiques.
1955 - 1956 : S?minaire des Missions ?trang?res, Pont-Viau, Laval, Qu?bec
?tudes th?ologiques et Oeuvres des Vocations du Dioc?se de Montr?al.
?tudes Secondaires :
1954 - 1955 : S?minaire de Trois-Rivi?res, Qu?bec, Canada
Cours suppl?mentaire de Philosophie.
1946 - 1951 : Petit s?minaire Coll?ge St-Martial, Port-au-Prince, Ha?ti
Baccalaur?at 1e et 2e Parties.
?tudes Primaires :
1941 - 1946 : ?cole des Fr?res de l'instruction Chr?tienne, Moron (J?r?mie), Ha?ti
Certificat d'?tudes primaires.
?tudes sp?cialis?es
1971 - 1998 : ?tudes et Recherches dans le domaine de l'optique, appliqu?es au concept traditionnel de ? Lumi?re ? et relative ? la photographie, l'imprimerie, le cin?ma et la t?l?vision.
avril - mai 1974 : T?l?vision de Radio-Qu?bec, Montr?al, Qu?bec, Canada
Stage en technique audio-visuelle et m?dium t?l?vis?.
ao?t - septembre 1959 : T?l?vision de Radio-Canada, Montr?al, Qu?bec, Canada
Stage en journalisme.
juin - juillet 1959 : Office National du Film, Montr?al, Qu?bec, Canada
Stage en Technique Cin?matographique,
R?alisation et narration de films documentaires.
Emplois et exp?rience professionnelles
Enseignement :
1967 - 1971 : Universit? de Montr?al, Montr?al, Qu?bec, Canada
Bibliotechnicien ? la biblioth?que des Sciences
Humaines et Sociales.
1963 - 1965 : Coll?ge St-Denis, Montr?al, Qu?bec, Canada
Professeur de Science Religieuse.
1962 - 1963 : Coll?ge des P?res Eudistes, Montr?al, Qu?bec, Canada
Professeur de Litt?rature et assistant-pr?fet de discipline.
Journalisme :
1961 - 1962 : T?l?-Ha?ti, Port-au-Prince, Ha?ti
Technicien, reporter et commentateur
1959 - 1961 : T?l?-Ha?ti, Port-au-Prince, Ha?ti
Cr?ateur, animateur et r?alisateur de programmes divers, particuli?rement du programme ? Arts et culture ?.
SITE WEB : http://www.contact-canadahaiti.ca
Lucien Bonnet
1 - 4390 Boulevard Samson
Laval (Qu?bec), CANADA
H7W 2G9
T?l.: (450) - 687 - 8406
Courriel : loubonnet@sympatico.ca
Site WEB : http://www.contact-canadahaiti.ca
Stay informed.Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.Prometheus Institute does not endorse any article or comment that is published on PEJ.org. The opinions expressed in all articles and comments are those of the authors and not of Prometheus Institute or the Peace, Earth & Justice News.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Say No To Tankers
Help protect the coast of BC's
Great Bear Rainforest
from the threat of oil spill
|
Past Articles
| Sunday, August 22 |
| · | Daring to object: Iraq war resisters, though often veterans themselves, have been met with a cool reception, much different from the draft dodgers of the 1960s |
| Saturday, August 21 |
| · | Uphold the Rights of the MV Sun Sea Migrants |
| · | Minister tasked with saving US airbase at the cost of the displacement of thousands |
| Thursday, August 19 |
| · | Myths and Realities about 490 Tamil Refugees on MV Sun Sea |
| Wednesday, August 18 |
| · | Coalition Calls for the Halt of Radioactive Steam Generator Shipment |
| Tuesday, August 17 |
| · | The Guns of August Lowering the Flag on the American Century |
| · | Climate Change Debate Rises with Pakistan Floods |
| Monday, August 16 |
| · | Radioactive Waste Gradually Disseminated into Everyday Items |
| · | The proposals of “Peoples Agreement” in the texts for the UN negotiations on climate change |
| Friday, August 13 |
| · | The Gulf at the Gas StationCan We Calculate the True Cost of Our Dependence on Oil? |
| · | Clicktivism is ruining leftist activism |
| Wednesday, August 11 |
| · | Mosque Mania Anti-Muslim Fears and the Far Right |
| Monday, August 09 |
| · | press conference by Ambassador Pablo Solon of the Plurinational State of Bolivia at the UNFCCC climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany (via UNFCCC website) |
| · | Bring Water Into Climate Change Negotiations |
| · | COP16 Mexico: Governments Must not err as thy did at COP15 in Copenhagen |
| Friday, August 06 |
| · | A Nuclear Gamble on the Not-So-Distant Horizon |
| · | Hiroshima-Nagasaki remembered: |
| Thursday, August 05 |
| · | Ecuador Signs Deal Not to Drill in Amazon Nature Reserve |
| Wednesday, August 04 |
| · | Encourage Rainforest Action Network’s New Leader to Work to End Primary Forest Logging |
| Monday, August 02 |
| · | Long-Awaited Cluster Bomb Ban Enters Into Force |
| · | Tomgram: Ann Jones, In Bed With the U.S. Army |
| Thursday, July 29 |
| · | U.N. Declares Water and Sanitation a Basic Human Right |
| · | The End of (Military) History? The United States, Israel, and the Failure of the Western Way of War |
| Wednesday, July 28 |
| · | Dennis Kucinich: WikiLeaks gave us 92,000 reasons to leave Afghanistan PICK ONE! |
| · | ENBRIDGE: NO PIPELINE, NO TANKERS. |
| · | The Human Right to Water and Sanitation” |
| · | Discurso “Derecho humano al agua y saneamiento” |
| Tuesday, July 27 |
| · | Tuesday Vote Expected on War Escalation Funding |
| Sunday, July 25 |
| · | Venezuela Will Suspend Oil Shipments to U.S. if Attacked |
| · | U.S. Labor Fights Back |
| · | RE: House Republicans and H. Res 1553 |
| · | Fallujah children's 'genetic damage' |
| Tuesday, July 20 |
| · | 18TH ANNUAL FIESTA CUBANA |
| · | U.N.'s Big Five Facilitate Arms Transfers to Rights Violators |
| Sunday, July 18 |
| · | Big Oil Makes War on the Earth The Gulf Coast Joins an Oil-Soiled Planet |
| Friday, July 16 |
| · | Water as Human Right Threatens to Split World Body |
| Thursday, July 15 |
| · | BP Caps Horizon well, or Did They? |
| · | Why Are We in Afghanistan?As Petraeus Takes Over, Could Success Be Worse Than Failure? |
| Thursday, July 08 |
| · | David Johnston by accepting this Appointment as Governor General has compromised himself |
| · | Hope and Change Fade, but War Endures Seven Reasons Why We Can’t Stop Making War |
| Tuesday, July 06 |
| · | 'Save Us From These Bankers, Fast' |
| · | Stage-Managing the War on Terror |
| Monday, July 05 |
| · | Voices from Toronto—proud to be Canadian eh! |
| Sunday, July 04 |
| · | Fourth of July 2010 Independence Day: the US –a system too entrenched to CHANGE |
| Saturday, July 03 |
| · | Obama's New Iran Sanctions: An Act of War |
| Friday, July 02 |
| · | The Land Where Theories of Warfare Go to Die |
| · | U.N. Clears Final Hurdle to Create New Gender Entity |
| Thursday, July 01 |
| · | Toronto Appeal: No More Police State Tactics! |
| · | Canada Day 2010 : 100 Reasons to Not Celebrate |
| Tuesday, June 29 |
| · | Imminent Canada-India nuclear pact heightens tensions |
| | Older Articles |
|
|
