The familiar kaleidoscope toy was developed by the Scottish physicist David Brewster (1781–1868) in 1816, patented by him in 1817, and described in his 1819 book, A Treatise on the Kaleidoscope. Generations of elementary students have made their own kaleidoscopes by assembling three microscope slides inside a tube and looking through it at a series of randomly colored objects drawn on a piece of transparent plastic placed across the far end of the tube.
REFERENCES
1.
David Brewster, A Treatise on the Kaleidoscope (Edinburgh, 1819).
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© 2009 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2009
American Association of Physics Teachers
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