Erwin Schr�dinger's Color Theory: Translated with Modern Commentary

by Keith K. Niall

Overview

This book presents the most complete translation to date of Erwin Schrödinger’s work on colorimetry. In his work Schrödinger proposed a projective geometry of color space, rather than a Euclidean line-element. He also proposed new (at the time) colorimetric methods – in detail and at length - which represented a dramatic conceptual shift in colorimetry. Schrödinger shows how the trichromatic (or Young-Helmholtz) theory of color and the opponent-process (or Hering) theory of color are formally the same theory, or at least only trivially different. These translations of Schrödinger’s bold concepts for color space have a fresh resonance and importance for contemporary color theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319646190
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	12/05/2017
Edition description:	1st ed. 2017
Pages:	193
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr. Keith Niall is First Secretary for The Technical Cooperation Program at the Embassy of Canada in Washington, DC. He graduated from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) with a doctorate in psychology. He pursued postdoctoral studies in the experimental psychology of vision at Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada) and the Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine (Toronto, Ontario). He has been a scientist with Defence Research and Development Canada in Toronto since 1988. He was an exchange scientist to the US Air Force Research Laboratory's flight simulation facility in Mesa, Arizona. He has published widely in the study of human vision and visual displays.

Table of Contents

Historical Introduction.- Outlines of Colorimetric Theory under Photopic Conditions, Part I Outlines of Colorimetric Theory Under Photopic Conditions.- Part II A Theory of Normalized Surface Reflectance for Pigments.- On the Relation of the Trichromatic to the Opponent-Process Theory of Color.- On the Origin of Spectral Sensitivity Functions of the Eye.- On the Apparent Color of Stars, and Color Appearance Under Mesopic Conditions.- The Projective Geometry of Color Space: A Review.- Surview and Conclusions.- Glossary.- Index.

Editorial Reviews

Particularly impressive in all of Schrödinger’s writings presented here is the frank tentative and open approach that he takes. … The work is interesting and valuable to non-experts, such as some artists, who might find the mathematics hard going.” (Ernest Edmonds and Mike Leggett, Leonardo, .leonardo.info, May, 2019)

“I find Niall’s translation to be a faithful representation of what I view as Schrödinger’s contributions to colorimetry (both fundamental and advanced). … I stand in awe of Niall’s compendium of translations, each done independently of the earlier ones. The arguments one can have about which translation is more ‘correct’ will be around for a long time and cannot be escaped. For the academician/color-theorist, this book is a must-read.” (Michael H. Brill, Color Research and Application, Vol. 43 (04), August, 2018)​

From the Publisher