The Measurement of Colour

Abstract

A BOOK by Dr. W. D. Wright may confidently be expected to be first class, and the present publication is ample justification for such a prophecy. Colorimetry depends mainly upon classical physics for most of its theory, and luckily the conceptions involved are to some extent quasi-mechanical, which is probably the reason why applications to industry and technology have been both rapid and successful. The reviewer's task may thus best be implemented by discussing some of the more important of these developments in the light of the guidance afforded by the volume before us. Before so doing, however, there are a few features of wider significance. One is the way in which the fundamental character of certain optical instruments and processes is laid bare; for example, the additive trichromatic colorimeter, the photo-electric tricolorimeter and the three-colour process of colour reproduction. The reader can see from the diagrams exactly what functions must be fulfilled, unmolested by photographs or descriptions of particular types of apparatus. Incidentally, what searching examination questions these topics would provide: to describe simply and directly the necessary and sufficient conditions that the required ends (often very involved) may be achieved. It would certainly not be easy to do it better than it is done here. Something of the kind found a place in the best German books of the nineteen-twenties, but they lacked the stimulus to deep comprehension on the reader's part which Dr. Wright has managed to introduce.

The Measurement of Colour

By Dr. W. D. Wright. Pp. vii + 223. (London: Adam Hilger, Ltd., 1944.) 30s. net.