Re: Newton and Goethe

[boblong@xxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Long)]

On Mon, 22 Jul 1996 22:38:39 +0200, you wrote:

|>Clyde McConnell points out that I'm wrong to call Goethe Newton's
|>"contemporary." Newton died about twenty years before Goethe was born.
|
|So is looking back in time like using a long lens?  Everything's
|kinda squished together? ;)

It's true that I think of Newton as an 18th Century man and Goethe as
a sort of half 18th Century and half 19th Century one (he lived to be
extremely old for those times), but I imagined that their lives
overlapped.  Should have known better though, because I once wrote an
article that involved researching a color organ or harpsichord built
by an 18th Century French padre who based his design on Newton's.
Newton had the idea that since the wavelength of extreme red is
approximately twice that of extreme violet, and the same 2:1
relationship exists in the wavelengths at the extremes of the musical
octave, there must be some relationship between color and sound.

So what are we all doing, playing IR overtones, like violinists?  [I
know, I know: that puts the short wavelengths in the IR spectrum,
where they don't belong.  Don't be so all-fired pedantic!]

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Topic No. 7