Musil color top
The Musil color or variation top is a simple instrument for the continuous, stepless generation of mixed colors through additive color mixing with the help of a rotating, two-tone circular surface . It was developed in 1906 by the Austrian writer and engineer Robert Musil for physical and perceptual psychological experiments.
Working principle
Two circular leaves of the same size and different color lying on top of one another are cut radially, interlocked over the cutting line and slightly twisted against each other. When viewed from above , this appears as a circular area consisting of a large segment of a circle (with the color of the upper circular sheet) and a small circular segment (with the color of the lower circular sheet). By further turning the circular sheets against each other, the size ratio of the two segments can be changed as desired change. If the circular area is now set in rotation around the center of the circle, the human eye - assuming a sufficiently high rotation speed - has the impression that the entire circular area has a single mixed color composed of the colors of the segments.
particularities
With the Musil color top, the rotating circular surface is continuously driven by a shaft . The ratio of the size of the two circle segments - and thus the color of the mixed color - can be continuously adjusted during operation.
literature
- Robert Musil: Collected Works . Volume II, Adolf Frisé (ed.), Reinbek bei Hamburg 1978, p. 944