Abstract
The modern science of color vision dates essentially from the 1850s, when Clerk Maxwell and Hermann von Helmholtz introduced the modern techniques of colorimetry and popularized the first comprehensive and broadly successful theory of color vision -- Thomas Young’s trichromatic theory. Both Helmholtz and Maxwell, however, acknowledged the powerful influence of Hermann Günther Grassmann and his seminal article, „Zur Theorie der Farbenmischung,“ which appeared in Poggendorff’s Annalen der Physik in 1853. That article has powerfully shaped all subsequent study of color, yet it presents many historical problems. It was Grassmann’s first and only real contribution to the field. It contained many assumptions and assertions that were immediately rejected by others. And in it Grassmann himself claimed to do nothing more than rigorously deduce certain universally-known and accepted principles of color-mixing which Newton had already laid down. Understanding the significance of Grassmann’s contribution, therefore, requires placing it within the larger context of thought about color and colorimetry and beginning, not with Grassmann, but with Helmholtz.
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Turner, R.S. (1996). The Origins of Colorimetry: What did Helmholtz and Maxwell Learn from Grassmann?. In: Schubring, G. (eds) Hermann Günther Graßmann (1809–1877): Visionary Mathematician, Scientist and Neohumanist Scholar. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 187. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8753-2_8
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