He was such a prolific scientist he had to put 'etc' on his business cards to cover his wide range of achievements.

Scots inventor Sir David Brewster was knighted, received several honorary degrees and even counted Queen Victoria among his fans.

The man who invented the kaleidoscope 200 years ago has almost "vanished from history", however, according to Dr Peter Reid, of Edinburgh University.

"I think it's time we reclaimed him," says Dr Reid, from the university's school of Physics and Astronomy.

"The more you dig into his work, you realise the breadth of him as a human being is quite extraordinary.

"Although he was known at the time for the invention of the kaleidoscope and another device called the stereoscope - and these were the things that made him world famous to the public - he was a man who was actually known and highly regarded in the scientific community at the time for a whole range of things he did.

"People in his time would have said, 'oh that's a Brewster invention'.

"At the time, he must have been a presence almost everywhere and yet suddenly this disappears."

Born in 1781, Brewster was always fascinated with scientific instruments, making a telescope at the age of ten with the help of a local mathematician.

During his career he became known as the father of experimental optics.

His kaleidoscope design was created 200 years ago using coloured objects to create patterns as the tube rotated.

Initially intended as a scientific tool, it proved to be a huge success as a toy, resulting in 200,000 kaleidoscopes being sold in London and Paris in just three months.

While Brewster may not have anticipated the popularity of kaleidoscope as a toy, he certainly hadn't banked on the invention to be freely copied by others due to a patent error.

"The invention of the kaleidoscope came out of him investigating reflections of light in some of the instruments he was working on," Dr Reid says.

"I suspect it caught him a bit by surprise that it suddenly took off as a instrument for looking at public art.

"I think he would have appreciated the beauty of the colours but I don't think that was his motivation so it is interesting how that crossed over."

"Until he became principal at St Andrews when he was 55, he was never really financially secure, he was an unlucky man," Peter adds.

"He didn't make money off the kaleidoscope because the patent he put in encountered delays because there were errors in it.

"Meanwhile, he had slightly mistakenly shown the instrument to a whole lot of people in London, who then made hundreds of thousands.

"There's an estimate that he could have made £100,000 out of it when, at the time, £700 a year was considered a lot of money.

"You would be slightly peeved if we had missed out on what would be £10m or £20m today because the patent went in a week late."

As well as the kaleidoscope, Brewster's achievements include establishing the principles which are behind LCD televisions and sunglasses, and paved the way for a new optical systems in British lighthouses, which was "responsible for improving the safety of maritime Britain at that time".

He also helped develop improved versions of the stereoscope, the first portable device to create a 3D image by superimposing left and right images for the viewer.

"The stereoscope was almost as popular at the time as the kaleidoscope was," Dr Reid says.

"At that point, people could pick an object up and see three dimensional worlds in front of them. It was astonishing.

"There were articles written by people who were almost frightened of what they saw. It was just such an amazing experience."

With such a fine list of achievements, Dr Reid says the question mark over why his name has not lived on in the same way as his inventions have could be attributed to a combination of his fiery personality and his approach to tackling experiments.

"He was very much the practical experimenter," he says.

"He would work on hundreds and thousands of samples and work out the ways that they interacted with light but he never actually said: Why do they do that? It was left to others to do that.

"Even though he didn't give the final reason why something happened, his colleagues always knew his data would be exceptional and they would be able to make use of it."

To celebrate Brewster's work, a free Symmetries in Light exhibition is launching in Edinburgh, with more than 100 quirky kaleidoscopes from antique designs to modern works from a prized Japanese collection.

"Not only are the views you see inside stunning but the pieces are works of art themselves so it is interesting how Brewster's invention has been recognised and taken to a level of artistic excellence," Dr Reid adds.

"On this anniversary of the kaleidoscope, it's nice that we recognise our own scientific heroes.

"I see him as someone whose influence may not be there by name but is there by the way in which our institutions and our understanding and appreciation of science altered in the 19th century."

Symmetries in Light will be on show as part of Edinburgh International Science Festival on April 3 to 5 and April 7 to 10 at the Playfair library. A talk on Brewster's legacy will also take place on April 8.

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