Kinetically multicolored light source

Abstract

A kinetically multicolored light source is described, comprising: a light source capable of producing a plurality of primary colors; oscillatory means for driving said light source; and means for moving said light source. The oscillatory driving means may drive the light source so that one or more of the primary colors is alternately turned on and off at a frequency above the critical fusion frequency of an observer, whereby each of the colors appears to emanate simultaneously and continuously thereby appearing to the observer as a single secondary color when the light source moves slowly with respect to the observer. The light source may move relative to the observer sufficiently rapidly that each of the oscillating primary colors if viewed alone would appear to the observer to emanate from bright segments of a curvilinear path with intervening dark segments. When viewed together the path segments for each of the primary colors may spatially overlap to varying degrees depending on the relative frequency, amplitude, phase, and duty cycle at which each of the primary colors is produced. The observer may therefore observe a myriad of color alternation pattern along the curvilinear path, which may comprise one or more of: dark segments, bright primary color segments, and bright secondary color segments. Thus, by moving the light source sufficiently rapidly relative to the observer, visually striking, intriguing, and/or pleasing multicolored illuminated displays may be produced by a light source which appears monocolored when moving relatively slowly relative to the observer.