Color Vision as a function of a complex variable.

This article has been published in 1996 in Biophysics Journal Vol.41 No.3 pp.739-748

Abstract

An algebra of colour vision somewhat resembling that of spinors is proposed. In this algebra white colour corresponds to zero and the colour pattern to complex number. Thus, the intensity of colour is the amplitude of a complex number and colour is a phase. The Young-Helmholtz and Hering schemes are considered. It is shown that both these schemes ultimately lead to the same algebra of complex numbers, although the projective-geometric algorithms generating them differ.

Color Vision as a function of a complex variable