Bryce Bayer, ex Kodak scientist, back in 1975 invented a color filter, that was then name Bayer filter, to be put in front of a sensor to build a color images from a monochromatic sensor.
Bayer has been honored by the Royal Photographic Society (founded in 1853!) for this invention that opened up the road to digital imaging.
Maybe not everybody knows that digital cameras employs a monochromatic (grey scale) sensor and not a color sensor. A Bayer filter stands in front of the sensor with as many colored tiny glasses/lens as pixels (a tiny red lens for first pixel, then a tiny green lens for second pixel, then a tiny blue one, then a green lens, and so on).
Through an algorithm, the colored image is approximately rebuilt. Thanks Bryce!