reSOLUTION Industry No. 7
Customer Magazine for Material Sciences & Technology No. 7
It’s all about color: How is color used in metallography? How do experts examine the authenticity of printing dyes in a document? Were antique sculptures really white – or rather colorful? Examine the new issue of reSOLUTION.
Topics in this issue:
- Metallography with Color and Contrast - The Possibilities of Microstructural Contrasting
- Genuine or Fake? - Stereomicroscopy Exposes Counterfeiters
- Vertical Resolution - Small Steps, Big Effect - 3D Visualization of Surface Structures with Digital Microscopes
Editorial
The fact that we see different colors is purely because of physical laws concerning the absorption and reflection of different wavelengths at objects. Light itself has no color, as Isaac Newton discovered as long ago as 1730 (“The rays are not colored”). The sensation of “color” is triggered as light stimuli are processed by our eyes and brain. Why evolution taught us to see in color is still a point of contention among experts today. One of the key functions of color is that it organizes our perception and helps us to identify and differentiate objects. This effect plays a major role in light microscopy, too. The very first article in this issue vividly explains how color is used in metallography in the form of different contrasting techniques and color etching to give microscope images extra informative value.
Forensic scientists inspecting the authenticity of printing dyes in a document have quite a different view of color than metallographists. Restorers, on the other hand, are on the lookout for the tiniest traces of paint on antique sculptures to prove how magnificently colored the everyday life of the Greeks and Romans must have been.