What happens when we change the order of colours in Newton disc?

Question

In Newton Disc, different colours constituting the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum are arranged in the same order as they appear in the spectrum (increasing/decreasing order of wavelengths/frequencies). In other words, the colours appear in this order - Violet (V), Indigo (I), Blue (B), Green (G), Yellow (Y), Orange (O), and Red (R) as we move clockwise in the following figure.

What happens if we disrupt the order in which they are present on the disk? For example, instead of VIBGYOR, let us assume GBIORVY. Will we see the same white colour on rotating the disc at high angular velocities?

^{Image Courtesy : Newton Disc - Wikipedia}

Answer 1

Newton's Disc works due to the fact that image of an object persists in our brain for $\frac {1}{16}^{th}$ of a second. Now the whitening effect would work as long as the time period of the disc is smaller than $\frac {1}{16}^{th}$ of a second i.e., to say that order doesn't matter.

Here are some articles on persistence of vision that you would like to read:

• Persistence of vision (Wikipedia)

• Persistence of vision: How does animation work?