The original meaning of the word harmony (Harmonia, in the age of Homer) referred to such concrete examples as the manner of construction of wooden ships. There is nonetheless reason to believe that the concept was also in early use in the evaluation of aesthetic qualities. Ancient art, crafts and architecture reflect a conscious application of the unitary proportions which characterize harmonical principles.

The concept Harmonia began to receive a greater significance, however, through the research of Pythagoras (died c. 500 BC) into the internal mathematical structure of perceptual phenomena. His work demonstrated that the musical intervals octave, quints and quarts etc., and scale refinement correspond to definite mathematical ratios. On the strength of this realization, the term harmony seemed increasingly to denote the equilibrium of qualities which conjoin and bind physically and aesthetically, as well as spiritually. The experiments and musical theories of Pythagoras were continued by Aristoxenos, a student of Aristotle. He laid the ground work for a scientific theory of musical aesthetics through the development of diatonic tonesteps, leading to the later establishment of chromatic scale refinement, which includes the principles of major and minor.

Pythagoras asserted that certain numerical ratios informed nature and the universe. These ideas of world harmony inspired Johan Kepler (1571-1630) to discover that the orbital paths of the planets around the sun describe proportions which correspond to musical intervals.

Through the centuries, the discovery of mathematical and harmonic relations have spurred other investigators to search for comparable phenomena in their own disciplines. It might indeed seem remarkable that music, as a form of expression which appeals to feelings, is grounded in clear mathematical ratios, while the visual, aesthetic and emotional forms of art receive so little support from mathematical or harmonical structures. A list of the artists and scientists who have explored the relation between audible tones and colour include Aristotle, Newton, Goethe, Helmholz, Skrjabin, Munsell, and Kandinsky. Thus far, however, no scientific or universal theory of correlation has been published.

My interest for this theme began forty years ago. After a series of unsuccessful experiments in colour theory, conducted at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Art in Oslo and elsewhere, my research began to build on the ideas developed by Dr. Rudolf Haas, at the Institute for Harmonical Fundamental Research, in Vienna. This research employs an empirical-inductive method combined with philosophical speculation.

I wanted to study this subject in more depth, however, and began to consider the age-old question of why and how the human soul is affected by harmonic intervals within music. There were also indications that our auditory apparatus was governed by forces and stimuli which are independent of the influence of the conscious mind. An unanswered question arose from these observations: Was the human audition tuned in on specific frequencies corresponding to special energy levels or wavelengths? Another question appeared in its wake: Is our auditory apparatus influenced by some element with a corresponding interval structure?

Spectral lines are like an element’s ’fingerprint’, since atoms with many electrons produce a greater number of spectral lines, revealing their complexity. Unfortunately, I started looking at the wrong end of the periodic table of elements. But finally, in 1984, I came to study hydrogen, the first element in the periodic table. Here, with reference to hydrogen quantum leaps, common factors emerged which allowed me to draw analogies between tones and colours.

The hydrogen element is the simplest of all atoms, having a single electron which orbits its nucleus in a spherical path. Energy can be introduced into an atom by heating or electrical charge, and possibly by emotionally charged energy such as tones and light. The electron is then more highly charged, and its orbit expands. The atom is excited, a condition which is unstable. The electron sinks to a lower level of energy by emitting a light quantum which produces the lines in the hydrogen spectrum. Physicians have studied the energy levels of the hydrogen atom with great care, and established a series of levels which have been named for the researchers. The Balmer series is mainly in the visible spectrum and the Lyman series is in the ultraviolet range.

Unfortunately, very few measurements have been performed in the visual part of the hydrogen spectrum. Measurement data from the Balmer and Lyman series are therefore integral as evidence of harmonic interval ratios which reemerge in the microcosm. These ratios between the various values in the two series represent archetypal phenomena. The wavelengths and energy levels are identical with and analogue to mathematical interval patterns found in the temperate chromatic scales which Johan Sebastian Bach promoted. Balmer’s parameters are not sufficient to show a complete series of intervals connecting entire octaves in the analogue relations between sounds and colours. Measurements to be performed with improved instruments most probably will show a complete interval structure. There are, however, already indications supporting this theory in both the Balmer and Lyman series. If the Lyman series in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum is multiplied by four, the Balmer series in the visual part of the spectrum emerges with its colours. These colours of the hydrogen spectrum represents a quantification process for the making of scales with several colours from octaves of the E.I.A (Einar Ingram Andersen) series. This is the basis for the development of a new theory of colour based on the scientific relations between sounds and colours.

These experiments have been underway for some time. With economic support from NTNF (The Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research), a series of experiments have been conducted at the Department of Biophysics at the University of Oslo. A painstaking process of analysis has shown that natural theories of colour deviate greatly from many of the traditional models of colour theory which have been employed in artistic, aesthetic and practical applications.