Looking through a kaleidoscope is fun, because it creates a colorful and symmetric image. The image can be almost infinitely complex. Like they say about snowflakes, no two are identical.
So I got thinking…has anybody ever made a kaleidoscope that gives an image like a snowflake—all white , or colorless?
I got the idea from the pictures of snowflakes in this book
Can such an image be create with the mirrors of a kaleidoscope?
Of course.
Just point it at a sheet of white paper.
I used to make kaleidoscopes with scrape glass from my stained glass work. I did once make one with bits of iridized clear glass. It turned out to be quite beautiful. I doublt that plain clear glass would have enough contrast to be attractive.
??? The colors seen through a kaleidoscope are IN the kaleidoscope.
Not necessarily. Lots of kaleidoscopes let you point it at a scene, or have removable discs, like this.
Right, but even for the sort that do have the colors inside them, the colors just come from little scraps of colored material that you rearrange into new patterns by shaking the kaleidoscope. It would be perfectly possible to make one with little scraps of white material instead, or any other single color, or combination of colors, that you might want.
What they’re trying to point out is that not all kaleidoscopes have anything in them. They just manipulate the image on the other side with mirrors. In fact, I believe adding the little bits of paper is the newer version.
I don’t believe I’ve seen one with only white bits. I’m not sure it would work well, as they’d need to be against a pretty dark background to be seen, and, to let light in, that background has to be fairly translucent.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had built a “snowflake” kaleidoscope, just to exploit the sixfold symmetry they usually have, and the chance to produce an interesting device. I’ve seen lots of one-of-a-kind “artisan” kaleidoscopes in recent years (as opposed to cheap, mass-produced kaleidoscopes, that you’d expect to be brightly colored). On the other hand, I definitely haven’t seen any “snowflake” kaleidoscopes, or non-colored griselle kaleidoscopes.
But, of course, now that you’ve thrown the concept out into the Internet Hive-Mind, it might be only a matter of time.
I know that. Did you not notice the words “right” and “even”? It really is rather irritating to get “corrected” on points that one has explicitly taken account of.
I don’t claim to have seen one either, but I do not see why it could not be made to work. I do not know if the results would be as pretty as one using colors, but the OP asked if it was possible (and clearly had this sort of kaleidoscope in mind, not the sort that you look through to the scene beyond) , and the answer is clearly yes.
Is a “griselle kaleidoscope” the type that beowulff was talking about, that do not have colored bits inside, but that you look through to the environment beyond? (I tried Googling it, but this thread is already the first hit, and the other hits on the first page did not seem promising.) If so, non-colored ones definitely exist. My mother used to have one.
