THIS IS NOT YELLOW

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The Teleology of Green
or
THIS IS NOT YELLOW
or
Magenta is not a real color
or
The Meaning of Orange
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The Teleology of Green The Story
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Colors are the smiles of Nature Leigh Hunt, 19th
century poet
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Oxford English Dictionary Teleology The doctrine
or study of ends or final causes, esp. as
related to the evidences of design or purpose in
nature also such design as exhibited in natural
objects or phenomena.
1740 ZOLLMAN in Phil. Trans. XLI. 299 Teleology
is one of those Parts of Philosophy, in which
there has been but little Progress made. 1868
F. BUCKLAND in Bompas Life x. (1885) 224 This
is the doctrine of Teleology i.e. the doctrine
that every organ is adapted to a special use.
1893 H. DRUMMOND in Barrows Parl. Relig. II.
1322 Darwin has not written a chapter that is
not full of teleology.
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THIS IS NOT YELLOW
Philosophy
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Color is our brains response to light. Light
is a term that refers to a electromagnetic
radiation. And electromagnetic radiation are
waves of different energies that extend over a
broad range
frequency, Hz 10 26 10 24 10 22
10 20 10 18 10 16 10 14 10 12
10 10 10 8 10 6 10 4 10 2 Hz
cosmic gamma X-rays UV
Vis IR Radio induction
power
wavelength, nm 10 -8 10 -6 10 -4
10 -2 1 10 2 10 4
10 6 10 8 10 10 10 12 10 14 10
16 nm
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Each of the colors of visible light has a
corresponding wavelength between 400 to 700
nanometers (or nm).
Is this because the eye has a specific detector
(or receptor) for 565 nm yellow light? And a
different receptor for 450 nm blue light? And
another one for 650 red-orange light? And so on,
for every wavelength between 400 and 700
nm? Seems like that would be a LOT of different
types of receptors. Nature is smarter and
more efficientthan that. Only three different
receptors for visible light are used.
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Beauty in the eye of the beholder
Your eyes have only three color receptors
(detectors) - the RGB cones (red-green-blue)
It is the brain that interprets visible light as
having color.
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Yellow light is perceived by our eyes when two
color receptors, Red and Green, are stimulated
simultaneously. This is indicated on the diagram
by the red and green arrows.
It is the brain that interprets yellow light as
having a yellow color.
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What about red-orange?, you say. Red-orange
light would also simultaneously stimulate the
Red and Green receptors. See?
Aaahhh..true. But look! The relative lengths of
the arrows are different. The green arrow, i.e.
G-receptor, is much less stimulated than the R
-receptor.
So, red-orange light is seen as different from
yellow light due to the ratio of R and G
response.
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When the R receptor gets about the same signal as
the G receptor, or R G, yellow is perceived.
When the R receptor gets a larger response the
the G receptor, something like R 3G,
red-orange is perceived.
It is the brain that interprets color.
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THIS IS NOT YELLOW
Philosophy
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Is there a unique GREEN out there?
Note that there is no wavelength where only the
green cones detect
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Magenta is not a real color.
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Magenta is a non-spectral hue.
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Magenta is not a real color.
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Maxwells Triangle
Think of the saturated red and green colors on
Maxwells diagram as vectors. Now, imagine
decomposing these R and G vectors into the sum
of the dashed arrows.
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Maxwells Triangle
See how two of the decomposed vectors that run
along the right edge of the triangle are
co-linear but point in exactly opposite
directions? They cancel each other. This leaves
the shorter vectors components these vectors have
the same direction and point from yellow. They
represent the yellow product from adding red
and green.
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Maxwells Triangle
Blue Yellow White?! Blue yellow vectors
point in exactly opposite direction and cancel
to make white.
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The Teleology of Green The Painting
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The Difference Between Art and Science From
this Munch painting of someone pained on a
bridge, hands held to ears, the observer could
scrape an orange micron speck. He could mount
it on a slide, fine-tune the fast beams that
circle under parking lots and football fields,
prodded on by magnets handless shove, focus,
for that is his craft, the stone particles
(fancy calibrated stones)
to jarring graphed impact in the paint. The
search is for the force of the scream. But
the particles pry is too strongthey shock
loose the paint molecules, in sound
demonstration of the uncertainty principle.
The painting hangs Norwegian sky and harbor
pick up the scream, beam it into the
observers skull. There, echoing, effect
change. Roald Hoffmann, chemist, poet
Nobel Laureate
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The Scream Edvard Munch 1893
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Anxiety Edvard Munch
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The Difference Between Art and Science From
this Munch painting of someone pained on a
bridge, hands held to ears, the observer could
scrape an orange micron speck. He could mount
it on a slide, fine-tune the fast beams that
circle under parking lots and football fields,
prodded on by magnets handless shove, focus,
for that is his craft, the stone particles
(fancy calibrated stones)
to jarring graphed impact in the paint. The
search is for the force of the scream. But
the particles pry is too strongthey shock
loose the paint molecules, in sound
demonstration of the uncertainty principle.
The painting hangs Norwegian sky and harbor
pick up the scream, beam it into the
observers skull. There, echoing, effect
change. Roald Hoffmann, chemist, poet
Nobel Laureate