Are Black and White Colors?
Are Black and White Colors?
That is at least one point on which Newtonians and followers of Huygens and Young agree about.
Black and White are not colors, properly speaking.
White is the result of all primary colors, while Black is that of the secondary ones.
But most important of all, we have an absolute dichotomy in the optical world:
White represents All colors, while Black represents None.
Black is defined as the absence of light, it is what remains when all other colors have been absorbed.
This view is completely arbitrary and relies on no empirical evidence whatsoever. You have to believe in in it to... believe it.
Light is defined as arbitrarily white, while we can see that there is quite a difference between a white glass, and a transparent glass.
If Newton had opted for this more reasonable solution, light theories, physical science and cosmology would have looked completely different.
A white ambient light would create an opaque atmosphere where everything would turn white, just like in the Matrix.
If we accepted the idea that white is a color, different from the transparent state of light when all colors are present, and that therefore also black is a color, the result of a certain mix, then we would revolutionize physics.
Funny, how much depends on a simple definition.
That is at least one point on which Newtonians and followers of Huygens and Young agree about.
Black and White are not colors, properly speaking.
White is the result of all primary colors, while Black is that of the secondary ones.
But most important of all, we have an absolute dichotomy in the optical world:
White represents All colors, while Black represents None.
Black is defined as the absence of light, it is what remains when all other colors have been absorbed.
This view is completely arbitrary and relies on no empirical evidence whatsoever. You have to believe in in it to... believe it.
Light is defined as arbitrarily white, while we can see that there is quite a difference between a white glass, and a transparent glass.
If Newton had opted for this more reasonable solution, light theories, physical science and cosmology would have looked completely different.
A white ambient light would create an opaque atmosphere where everything would turn white, just like in the Matrix.
If we accepted the idea that white is a color, different from the transparent state of light when all colors are present, and that therefore also black is a color, the result of a certain mix, then we would revolutionize physics.
Funny, how much depends on a simple definition.
Comments (2)
Close your eyes, and you will certainly notice that your not looking a a black wall.
The absence of light is quite different from blackness, even if they share one very fundamental property: lack of visibility.
One very important fact in cognitive science is that eye cells are never in complete rest. There is always a threshold of activity even in complete blackness.
I personally think that comes because we are able to see darkness or blackness. There is no situation, except maybe when we are closing our eyes and it is also totally dark, where our eyes are not reacting to what is happening around them
So, yes, when the sun disappears, everything turns dark. But that does not mean that we stop seeing.
Biological creatures have at least to register the disappearance of sun light, and for us, of all colors.
We would be hard put to justify the transition from light to dark as any different than the transition from red to blue.
Also, darkness only looks black because of the way our eyes are built. With different goggles, darkness could become red, or violet, or a shade of gray.
It seems so obvious. Who would be stupid enough to doubt such an obvious empirical fact?
But then, what would happen if you used a non-white screen?