Additive colors are interesting to young students. In this paper, we show a convenient and straightforward method to demonstrate this phenomenon by projector. It produces defocus blur and reduces imaging quality for color mixing. We believe this demonstration experiment can be performed in most classrooms.

This article describes a simple way to introduce nanomaterials using the presence of carbon nanodots (CNDs) in widely available food. Budweiser® beer and Coca-Cola®, commercial foods that are commonly accessible, were utilized to demonstrate the optical property of nanoparticles. Specifically, green and violet laser pointers were employed for the…

It's not surprising that rainbows have received a great deal of attention: in textbooks, in magazines, and on the web. They are, after all, beautiful, fascinating, occasionally awe-inspiring, even a little mysterious. They are an almost perfect blend of natural beauty and simple physics. Has everything that can be said about rainbows already been…

Although nearly everyone is familiar with colors from an early age and the fundamentals of color mixing are taught at various abstraction levels throughout kindergarten to high school, we repeatedly observe that our student teachers in physics have problems in explaining the subject. Therefore, we propose an experimental setup that focuses on the…

We present a simple and cheap experimental setup that clearly shows how the colors of the white light spectrum after passing a prism do not recombine when emerging from an identical second prism, as it is still found in many references.

The result of additive colors is always fascinating to young students. When we teach this topic to 14- to 16-year-old students, they do not usually notice we use maximum light quantities of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) to obtain yellow, magenta, and cyan colors in order to build the well-known additive color diagram of Fig. 1. But how about…

Thin film interference manifests itself in a wide range of visually pleasing situations in everyday life (in the colored effects caused by a drop of oil on water, in soap bubbles, etc.) and is also involved in important technical applications (semi-reflecting mirrors, anti-reflection lenses, etc.). Yet, despite its familiarity, high school…

Glow sticks are a popular Halloween staple familiar to most of our students. The production of light via a chemical reaction is called "chemiluminescence," and glow sticks are often used as demonstrations and experiments in the chemistry classroom to study reaction rates as a function of temperature. A black light can be used to…

Describes construction and operation of an inexpensive and portable educational hallway exhibit on color mixing. (JRH)

Presents the Night Spectra Quest, a pocket-sized chart that identifies in color the spectra of all the common night lights and has an integrally mounted, holographic diffraction grating to look through. (JRH)

The effect of background color on the perception of color by students is discussed. Explanations on why students only see certain colors when viewing colored marks on a blackboard through different color filters are provided. (KR)

Two different methods of measuring the temperature of an incandescent lamp at various voltage levels are described. By observing the color produced at a particular voltage levels, the lamp's color as a function of temperature can be determined. Needed equipment include a variac, a voltmeter, and an ammeter. (KR)

Describes a system that demonstrates how a color may be generated and specified in mathematical terms. Illustrates the mixing of primary colors as well as the concepts of saturation, luminance, and illumination. (JRH)

Describes construction and use of a simple home-built device, using an overhead projector, for use in demonstrations of the addition of various combinations of red, green, and blue light. Useful in connection with discussions of color, color vision, or color television. (JRH)