The Kaleidoscope

Sir David Brewster invented the kaleidoscope in 1816 while conducting experiments on light polarization. Its name derives from the ancient Greek kalos ‘beautiful’ and eidos ‘form’. This optical device is made from ‘tube containing mirrors and pieces of colored glass or paper, whose reflections produce changing patterns that are visible through an eyehole when the tube is rotated’. It became a social phenomenon. In 1818 Blackwood's Magazine stated that: " no invention, and no work, whether addressed to the imagination or to the understanding, ever produced such an effect." Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions were purchased in the course of the century. Some adjectives that describe its effect – psychedelic, polychromatic…. ever-shifting, fluid, fluctuating, unpredictable, impermanent.