A kaleidoscope is a tube of mirrors containing loose colored beads, other small colored objects. The viewer looks in one end and light enters the other end, reflecting off the mirrors. Typically there are two rectangular lengthwise mirrors. Setting of the mirrors at 45° creates eight duplicate images of the objects, six at 60°, and four at 90°.
As the tube is rotated, the tumbling of the colored objects presents the viewer with varying colors and patterns. Any arbitrary pattern of objects shows up as a beautiful symmetric pattern because of the reflections in the mirrors.
A two-mirror model yields a pattern or patterns isolated against a solid black background, while a three mirror model yields a pattern that fills the entire field. For a 2D symmetry group, a kaleidoscopic point is a point of intersection of two or more lines of reflection symmetry.
See also symmetry combinations. Modern kaleidoscopes are made of brass tubes, stained glass, wood, steel, gourds and most any other material an artist can sculpt or manipulate. The part of the kaleidoscope which holds objects to be viewed is called an object chamber or cell.
Object cells may contain almost any material. Sometimes the object cell is filled with liquid so the items float and move through the object cell with slight movement from the person viewing.
kaleidoscope , optical instrument that uses mirrors to produce changing symmetrical patterns. Invented by the Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster in 1816, the device is usually a hand held tube, a few inches to as much as twelve feet in length, and looks like a small telescope.
At one end of the tube is an eyepiece at the other end colored chips of glass are loosely sandwiched between two glass disks. Between the ends of the tube are two rectangular plane mirrors. The long edge of one of the two mirrors lies against the long edge of the other at an angle, their intersection lying close to the axis of the tube.
The glass chips form patterns where they lie, and these patterns change as the chips fall into new positions when the tube rotates. Each pattern undergoes multiple reflections in the mirrors in such a way as to produce a resulting symmetrical pattern.
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