Sweden's instant colour television

APR 01 1962

SVT, then Sweden's only channel and broadcasting in black and white, presented its technical expert Kjell Stensson explaining that a nylon stocking stretched over the screen would refract the picture into colour. He opened with genuine-sounding material on the prismatic nature of light and double-slit interference, then told viewers to tape a stocking to the glass and move their heads to catch the full spectrum. Thousands complied. Sweden did not actually begin regular colour transmission until 1970.