Chemistry of Color
F05
John Bullock

It is difficult to overstate the impact color has on the quality of our lives or its importance in the visual arts. As a subject, color is truly interdisciplinary as it can be looked at from historical, cultural, artistic, scientific, and even economic perspectives. But what is color? Where does it come from and how do we perceive it? These are some of the questions that we will examine in the class. Beginning with the nature of light itself, we will explore what color is and how it arises from the interactions between light and matter. We will then focus on how color arises in specific materials such as pigments, dyes, and other organic and inorganic materials. Finally, we will examine the biology of how we sense color. Students will have reading assignments, papers, review assignments, and an oral presentation on a topic of interest to them. There will be occasional laboratory exercises during the regularly scheduled class times.