Freefall

An Autumn explosion of color created by taking a very interesting portion of a live tree and duplicating it in four quadrants. This fine art piece... more

by Debra and Dave Vanderlaan

Title

Freefall

Artist

Debra and Dave Vanderlaan

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

An Autumn explosion of color created by taking a very interesting portion of a live tree and duplicating it in four quadrants. This fine art piece makes for a very interesting decoration and conversation starter in any office or home...
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A Kaleidoscope operates on the principle of multiple reflection, where several mirrors are together. Typically there are three rectangular lengthwise mirrors. Setting the mirrors at a 60-degree so that it forms a triangle. 60 degree angle apart from each other creates eight duplicate images of the objects, six at 60°, and 2 at 90°. As the tube is rotated, the tumbling of the colored objects presents varying colors and patterns. Arbitrary patterns shows up as a beautiful symmetrical pattern created by the reflections. A two-mirror kaleidoscope yields a pattern or patterns isolated against a solid black background, while the three-mirror (closed triangle) type yields a pattern that fills the entire field.

Modern kaleidoscopes are made of brass tubes, stained glass, wood, steel, gourds or almost any material an artist can use. The part containing objects to be viewed is called the 'object chamber' or 'object cell'. Object cells may contain almost any material. Sometimes the object cell is filled with a liquid so the items float and move through the object cell in response to a slight movement from the viewer.

Patterns as seen through a kaleidoscope tube
Sir David Brewster began work leading towards invention of the kaleidoscope in 1815 when he was conducting experiments on light polarization but it was not patented until two years later. His initial design was a tube with pairs of mirrors at one end, pairs of translucent disks at the other, and beads between the two. Brewster chose renowned achromatic lens developer Philip Carpenter as the sole manufacturer of the kaleidoscope in 1817. It proved to be a massive success with two hundred thousand kaleidoscopes sold in London and Paris in just three months. Realising that the company could not meet this level of demand, Brewster requested permission from Carpenter on 17 May 1818 for the device to be made by other manufacturers, to which he agreed. Initially intended as a scientific tool, the kaleidoscope was later copied as a toy. Brewster later believed he would make money from this popular invention; however, a fault in his patent application allowed others to copy his invention.

Uploaded

October 25th, 2012