Who knew there is an invention to measure the blue of the sky?
Well, there is and it was invented by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, a Genevan geologist, meteorologist, physicist, mountaineer and Alpine explorer, often called the founder of alpinism and modern meteorology (and considered to be the first person to build a successful solar oven!) who was fascinated with the phenomenon of the sky appearing to be a darker blue the higher one ascended in elevation. So after climbing Mont Blanc to experience the phenomenon for himself, he invented in 1789 a device to measure the exact blue of the sky. He called this invention, a ring of paper with 52 different hues of blue arranged from light to dark on a gradated circular scale, a Cyanometer.
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de Saussure’s original Cyanometer now at the Bibliothèque de Genève, Switzerland |
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| A reproduction in a book of de Saussure’s original Cyanometer |
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