In this brief, Mary Virginia Orna details the history of color from the chemical point of view. Beginning with the first recorded uses of color and ending in the development of our modern chemical industry, this rich, yet concise exposition shows us how color pervades every aspect of our lives. Our consciousness, our perceptions, our useful appliances and tools, our playthings, our entertainment, our health, and our diagnostic apparatus all involve color and are based in no small part on chemistry.

This "Brief" describes the chemical view of color from antiquity to the present day Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Marco Fontani has been working at the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Florence since 2003. He is the author of over 120 publications in materials chemistry, organometallic chemistry, electrochemistry and the history of chemistry. He is a member of the National Society of History of Chemistry (Gruppo Nazionale di Storia e Fondamenti della Chimica). Mary Virginia Orna is Professor of Chemistry at the College of New Rochelle, NY. She has lectured and published widely in the areas of color chemistry and archaeological chemistry and, following a sabbatical leave at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, she has maintained a research relationship with art historians in the area of pigment content of medieval manuscripts. She has authored numerous journal articles, book chapters and encyclopedia articles, four books and edited nine others. She is active in several divisions of the American Chemical Society, having served as Chair, Program Chair andTreasurer of the Division of the History of Chemistry. She is the author of The Chemical History of Color (Springer: Heidelberg, 2013). Mariagrazia Costa has been associated with the Laboratory for Educational Research in Teaching Chemistry and Integrated Science, of the Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, since 1986. She is a member of the Gruppo Nazionale di Storia e Fondamenti della Chimica (National Group of History and Fundamentals of Chemistry) and authored or co-authored approximately 215 publications and 10 audiovisual works.

Inhalt

Introduction: Colors, Natural and Synthetic, in the Ancient World.- Discovery of the Physics of Color.- The Chemical Causes of Color.- Colorant Usage from Antiquity to the Perkin Era.- Beyond Perkin.- Major Analytical Techniques Based on Color: Volumetric Analysis; Chromatography; Spectroscopy; Color Measurement.- Color on the Biological and Biochemical Front.- Finale: Color in Foods, Photochemistry, Photoluminescence, Pharmaceuticals, Fireworks, Fun and the Future.