Newton’s Color Wheel – Physics Demonstration
by Lab Connections

The original color wheel, constructed by Sir Isaac Newton, was based on seven major colors, each one of them corresponding to seven plants and the seven musical notes of the diatonic scale. Those colors where red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Newton’s Color Wheel is an easy and convenient way to demonstrate to students how adding primary colors (additive color mixing) can create the color white. As the wheel rotates faster and faster, your eyes will eventually be unable to tell the different colors apart, and they will all begin to blend into the color white.

The entire apparatus has an overall height of approximately 16.5 inches, and a width of 9.5 inches, while the color wheel itself has a diameter of 9 inches. It includes a teacher’s guide that explains how additive color mixing works, as well as how to assemble Newton’s Color Wheel.