Machines · Study 073
Kaleidoscope
A twelve-fold kaleidoscope: a handful of drifting translucent polygons are reflected into a constantly reorganising mandala. Shake it with your pointer.
What you're looking at
Only one wedge of the image is real. Twenty six coloured polygons tumble slowly through it. That wedge is drawn twelve times around the centre, and every second copy is flipped so that neighbouring wedges are mirror images. The seams line up exactly, which is what makes the whole thing read as a single symmetric object.
The idea behind it
David Brewster invented the kaleidoscope around 1816 while studying the polarisation of light, and it was an immediate craze. Two mirrors set at 30 degrees give the twelve fold pattern shown here. Any angle that divides evenly into 360 works, and the smaller the angle the more intricate the result.
Try this
Move the pointer across the canvas to shake the shards and scramble the pattern.
