Über komplementäre Spektren

Summary

Observing a white line on a black ground in daylight through a glass prism one perceives the continuous spectrum of daylight. A black line on white ground under the same conditions shows an “inverse” spectrum (Goethe, Kirschmann), of which every colour is complementary to the colour of the normal spectrum at the corresponding place. If the white and black lines are illuminated with a light source emitting a line spectrum, e.g. mercury or zinc are, the normal spectrallines appear on the black ground and complementarily coloured lines on the white ground. The latter experiment, if possible at his time, would surely have convincedGoethe of his erroneous interpretation ofNewton's experiments.