Kool Kaleidoscopes

“Im a kaleidoscope lost in shapes and colors. There are days when everything seems to be upside down.  Days when im out of control.  Days when control… is you”

In 1816, the kaleidoscope was invented by Scottish scientist, Sir David Brewster, and patented by him in 1817.  David Brewster named his invention after the Greek words, kalos or beautiful, eidos or form, and scopos or watcher. So kaleidoscope means the beautiful form watcher.

Kaleidoscopes operate on the principle of multiple reflections, where several mirrors are attached together. As the tube is rotated, the tumbling of the colored objects such as beads or pebbles and bits of glass will make unique patterns. As the viewer looks into one end, light entering the other end creates a colorful pattern, due to the reflection off the mirrors. Not one pattern will ever be the same. Any arbitrary pattern of objects shows up as a beautiful symmetrical pattern created by the reflections in the mirrors.

The designs that are made within the kaleidoscope are extremely intriguing to the eye of the observer.  There is nothing else that can make the distinctive patterns of the kaleidoscope. All of the shapes of the design are symmetrically balanced which means that every side of the design are exactly the same. The reflections could also be seen as a crystallographic balanced pattern, because the pattern that the kaleidoscope makes consists of constant repetitions of the same shapes.

                                            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSiGte6Z41g

                             http://inventors.about.com/od/kstartinventions/a/kaleidoscope.htm