We have been lying to one another all along. A leaf is not green. A red rose is never actually red and violets
are most certainly un-blue.
The simple fact is this: the colors we see when we
look at a thing, let’s say a green leaf in this case, is actually the very
color it is not, which happens to be green.
We see the leaf as green because the leaf absorbs all of the other
colors in the visible spectrum of light and rejects green. We see the leaf as green because that is the
color reflected into our eyes. The color
of a leaf is actually violet-blue-yellow-orange-red—the remaining colors on the
spectrum.
I only bring this to light (pun fully intended) because
I got to thinking about what impact honesty in our descriptions of color might
have one everyday life. Clearly, if we
began using the actual colors for describing things, our language might suffer
greatly. Imagine someone peering up at
the sky and exclaiming: “Have you ever seen a sky so violet-green-yellow-orange-red!” This may be most problematic with what we
perceive as black, which is produced by surfaces that absorb all colors of
visible spectrum. You may hear, as a
result of this: “That crow I saw was as violet-blue-green-yellow-orange-red as
midnight in a coal mine.” And since
white is produced by objects that reflect all the visible colors of light, we
would need to change the name of the fairytale to Snow No-Color-At-All and the
Seven Dwarfs.
I think, this late in the game, we might be better
served to keep lying to each other.
Much simpler!
And will you just look at that orange sunset!
--Mitchell
Hegman
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