Page 94 - Expanded Media & the MediaPlex

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James Clerk Maxwell: Trichromatic Theory of Colour Vision 1861
This was the breakthrough theory. With Thomas Young’s 1902 theory of light and colours, and further work by Hermann von Helmholtz on the human eye’s photo-receptors - defining the wavelengths that the red, green and blue-responsive cones in the retina responded to - Maxwell was able to define his quantitative theory of colour by 1861. One of the first material results was his experiment in photographing a coloured tartan ribbon (centre, top), using panchromatic monochrome film, he made three transparencies through red, green and blue filters. When superimposed and viewed against a light-source, the full colour of the original ribbon was apparent. This was the first ever colour photograph. Within a generation or so, Maxwell’s theory sparked Impressionism (1872) and Pointillism (1884), trichromatic colour printing (1882), and the Lumiere’s commercial colour system: the beautiful Autochrome (1903-1935).
The history of modern new media is rooted in scientific discoveries, from Herschel, Niepce, and Wedgwood’s contribution to Photography, through to Babbage’s desire to automate the computation of astronomic tables and logarithms, - to Thomas Young, Hermann Helmholtz and Clerk Maxwell’s theory of trichromatic vision and on to the quantum discoveries of Planck, Bohr and others which underpin modern microprocessor design. That the Trichromatic Theory gave us so much reflects the importance of visual media in our culture - from revolutions in painting, in colour photography, to modern four- colour (CMYK) printing, to RGB monitors and televisions, digital cinema, ipads and smart-phones. Later in the 19th century Friedrich Reinitzer and Otto Lehmann made fundamental discoveries in liquid crystals - science that eventually resulted in the RCA Laboratories and the UK Ministry of Defence developing the science of liquid crystal displays. LEDs and OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) screens have a similar long back-story of fundamental science underpinning the modern technological application. In future the technologies of bendable and foldable screens, digital inks and direct retinal displays will further enhance the range of options for viewing data and digital content.