About the BBC Documentary “Colourful Notions”
February 27th, 2007 | No Comments »I have received numerous requests for a DVD copy of the 1988 BBC Documentary “Colourful Notions”. I originally obtained the film quite out of the blue from a Swedish friend of my wife who somehow know of my interest in color vision. It is my fervent wish that the BBC would make copies available!
In looking at the film anew today I was struck with the statement of the well known fact that Thomas Young in 1801 correctly discerned the trichromicity of vision. The statement on the film is that (paraphrased) “the eye sees only three primary colors…”. I could not have stated it better….this is exactly the crucial difference between my explanation and the historically inaccurate version. I geometrically and specifically show where these wavelengths interact on the retinal surface…and this is NOT as purported in the film!
Following Thomas Young’s correct bit of intuition over 200 years ago the field of vision ‘picked the wrong trichromatic model’ which it persists in, and teaches to students, to this day! So much experimental data has been acquired in the intervening years (the Nobelist George Wald’s ’blue-blind’ fovea, for example) that does not fit this mode (but is explained by mine!). The three RGB receptor response curves shown in the film - that are suspiciously and glaringly not RGB at all! - these same curves have been reprinted over and over in vision papers and textbooks..compunding the error for two centuries!
A necessary digression into science. Each retinal receptor (both cone AND rod) has two functions: 1.) to act as a sub-optical wavelength- dimensioned quantum confined electron (EQC) site that accepts the energy of the discrete optical interaction, and 2.) it’s dimension (set primarily by the rhodopsin protein of the retinal/rhodopsin complex) defines the interreceptor spacing and,. according to this explanation, the wavelength of the interaction surrounding the EQC central site. The retina in it’s living state suspends all receptors in an almost crystalline order .. not at all as the ‘dead’ floppy receptor remnants measured in the film. It is this living state retinal order that is at the basis of the light interaction that I describe. One should envision the retina as a highly ordered and spaced array of generic ‘nanowire’, energy accepting, elements - the receptors. Regarding the spectrophotometric measurements shown in the film of dead retinal fragments - the central electron quantum confinement centers remain in such fragments but the crucial and exacting surround of the refractive index medium is altered and is certainly not the same as in the retinal living state.
I have previously critiqued the BBC film (see in the body of the website) noting that, beyond the beautiful exposition of his theory by Edwin Land, I believe that the remainder perpetuates the incorrect ideas about retinal light interaction. It is maddening to see the purported response of a blue ‘cone’ being acquired in real time is actually not a ‘curve’ at all but noise raised to the ‘100’ level. I have written expensively on the subject of the ‘blue cone fallacy’ - again, see the body of the website. Short wavelength (blue) response occurs at rod-to-rod appositions!GCH
2/27/07
