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Frame enlargement from a 35 mm PathéColor film Eve’s Little Essentials (Mike Trickett collection). Note 2.
Natural light is the result of waves oscillating at a tremendous speed per second, just as other
waves, heavier and travelling far more slowly in comparison with light waves, produce sound.
Our familiar conception of natural light, or daylight, is that it is white; but we also know that
when a narrow beam is permitted to fall upon a length of glass of triangular section, known as a
prism, the light which on the outer side appears white is found to be resolved into colours on the
opposite side. In passing through the prism the beam of light has been deflected from a straight
path, and the result is that the waves of varying length, of which white light is composed, have
been sorted out. The shortest rays are red, while the longest rays have a violet tinge. The analysis
of light, as revealed by the spectrum in a dark chamber, is performed for us by Nature in the
rainbow.

If we examine that phenomenon we shall see that the innumerable tints constituting it fall into
three broad groups—red, green, and violet. These therefore are regarded as the primary colors.
By combining any two or all three, of these, the multitudinous hues with which we are
familiar may be produced. The average person, when he hears red, green, and violet described as
the primary colours, is inclined to remonstrate. At school or when using his box of paints, he was
taught to regard yellow, red, and blue as the primary colours, and green, a mixture of blue and
yellow, as a secondary or complementary colour. But the two instances deal with totally different
forms of light. The former is transmitted, and the second is reflected, light. This confusion of

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