Hey Ray: Colors that aren't colors
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Colors are everywhere.
Did you know, though, that scientifically a couple of the most common colors aren't considered colors at all?
Scientifically speaking, white and black are not considered colors. I know you can see black and white, but how light works may make you think differently about them as colors.
First, let's talk about how we see colors.
We need light to see colors, and visible light is made up of all the colors. When light hits an object, some of the colors in that light are absorbed and some of the colors in the light bounce off that object. The colors contained in the light that bounces off the object are the colors we see.
So, if you have a blue piece of paper, when light hits the paper, blue is reflected off the paper and the other colors are absorbed.
The weird thing is that visible light is made of all colors, and visible light is white! That means white is all the light or all of the colors bouncing off of an object making it appear white.
So, what we see as white is just all the colors.
Right now, you might be thinking, "If I mix a bunch of colors together, white is not what shows up."
If you take something, like paint, and mix up a bunch of colors, you get a brownish color. Mixing light and mixing colored paints are not the same things.
To mix light, we are going to do it with something called Newton's Disc.
This disk is just that, a disk with color segments on it.
When the disk is still you can see all the colors, but to mix them, you spin it really fast. I have it attached to this rotary tool, and when we turn it on, it spins about 35,000 revolutions per minute.
At that rate, your eyes will perceive the colors as mixed, and when they mix, they turn white, or at least grayish since we can't get a perfect mix.
Light is bouncing off all the colors, our eyes perceive them mixing them as they spin, creating whitish light!
That means white is all the colors.
So, what about black?
If I put you in a room and turned off the light, you would see darkeness. That is the color black. So, black is the absence of light.
Things that our eyes perceive as black in color just absorb all the visible light. You might feel this happening in the summertime when dark colored clothing in the sun gets hotter from absorbing the sun's energy.
So scientifically, white is all the colors available in visible light and black is no visible light.