Robert Krampf has some awesome and FUN science experiments for ALL ages.

Check out his latest newsletter below:

Robert Krampf's Experiment of the Week
Is That a Color Photo?

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Greetings from our home in Jacksonville.  What a week!  I have everyone rushing around like mad, trying to get the new member site up by next week.  There are a million things left to do, and I am sure that I won’t get everything polished to my satisfaction, but if I wait until I think everything is perfect, the site will never get up.  I won’t bore you with all the details, but if I did not have James and Gavin, I would be lost.  I’ll send you an email when it is up and running.

In the mean time, I am taking a few breaks from the keyboard.  I planted a small garden, with a few tomatoes, squash, eggplant, okra and pepper plants.  The squirrels and raccoons will probably eat it all, but it should be fun anyway.  I also video taped butterflies laying eggs on the passion vine in our backyard.  Hopefully I will be able to catch them as they hatch and the caterpillars grow.  It would be nice to have the full life cycle on tape.

What's New This Week:
    Video: Is That a Color Photo?

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Is That a Color Photo?

If you ask anyone in my family, they will tell you that I’ve always loved tricks.  I like science tricks, magic tricks, and tricks on my little brother.  This time we are going to trick your eyes by taking a black and white photo, and making your eyes tell your brain that the photo is in color.  To do that, we are going to use something called retinal fatigue.  The retina is a layer of light sensitive rod and cone cells at the back of your eye.  The rod cells detect things that are light and dark, as well as movement.  The cone cells detect color, and those are the cells that we are going to play with.

The easiest way to do this is to watch the video of this experiment.  If you have a very slow connection or don’t like videos, you can still do the experiment.

Start by making a red box in the center of a white page.  You can do that in a drawing program on your computer.  You color or paint a red box on a white piece of paper.  Make a black dot in the center of the red square.

Stare at the black dot in the center, and try not to let your eyes wander.  The red light from that box is hitting the cone cells in your retinas, causing the red sensitive cone cells to give off a chemical that stimulates nerve receptors to send a message to your brain that you are seeing red.  After a few seconds, the chemicals start to deplete, so that part of your retina becomes less sensitive to red light.  

After about 30 seconds, look at something white.   The part of your retina that is fatigued sees white, minus some red, letting you see an after image that is a light blue color known as cyan.  White light is made up of all the colors mixed together.  Cyan is the color that you get if you take white light and remove the red part.  

Every color has an inverse, a color that you mix it with to get white.  Keep in mind that we are talking about mixing colors of light, not colors of paint.

Try the same thing with other colors.  If you stare at yellow, you should see a blue after image.  Green should give you a red after image.  Every color will give you a different color after image.

You may have seen inverse images of flags that are green, yellow and black, instead of red, white and blue.  We are going to take that a step farther.

If you have a photo program on your computer, you can take that a step further.  Pick a photo that has large areas of bright color, and duplicate it, so you have two copies.  Open one copy and use the photo program to lower the saturation to zero, which should give you a black and white photo.  Some photo programs have a black and white setting as well.

Place the color copy of the photo on top of the black and white version.  Then check to see if your photo program has an invert option.  That will let you invert the colors of the photo, making it look like a color negative.  If you do have that option, then invert the color on the color copy.  If not, you can still do the experiment, but the black and white photo will seem to be colored with the inverse colors.

Once you have the two photos stacked, save both photos and then put your cursor on the button that will close the photo.  The idea is to stare at the center of the color photo for 30 seconds and then without moving your eyes, click the button to close that photo, leaving you looking at the black and white photo.  When you click the button, for a couple of seconds the black and white photo should seem to be in color.  

Try several different photos.  You will find that some work better than others.  Large areas of color work better, so a close up of scoops of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream should work very well.  

Have a wonder-filled week.

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