139

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6080744

The sun is not yellow or orange as we see in books and movies. It emits all the colours in the visible spectrum (also in other spectrums as well) making it white!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Spuddaccino@reddthat.com -2 points 1 year ago

Says who?

Says the diagram in the OP, the EM spectrum of a 5800K star, which clearly shows a peak within the visible spectrum in the blue band, and a significant (25% or so) drop off by the time it gets to the red band. Those aren't relatively equal.

As near as I can tell, your entire argument is based on what a human being perceives to be "white", and I'm not talking about perception at all, because it lies. Examples:

  • The sky looks blue. It's not blue, and you can tell by looking anywhere that isn't the sky in the daytime, because the air is the same everywhere.

  • Related: the sun looks yellow. The sun looks yellow for the same reason the sky looks blue.

  • When I close my eyes, I can't see anything. That doesn't mean everything is black or the same color as my eyelids.

  • Your own dress example, where different people would see different colors in the same dress.

You and I are arguing about two completely different things. You are talking about what color something looks to be, in terms of colloquial terms used to describe things people can see. I am talking about what color it is, in terms of temperature and wavelength, which are things people can measure.

[-] NoRodent@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Seems you didn't get my point:

Says the diagram in the OP, the EM spectrum of a 5800K star, which clearly shows a peak within the visible spectrum in the blue band, and a significant (25% or so) drop off by the time it gets to the red band. Those aren’t relatively equal.

Then show me an EM spectrum of this mythical "white light" temperature. No matter what temperature you choose, they all have different drop-offs at different frequencies, look again at this graph I linked to before:
Black body

The function isn't even symmetrical, so even if you chose one with the peak in the very middle of the visible spectrum, you'd still get different drop-offs in the blue band and in the red band. So how do you choose which temperature is this perfect white? I'll tell you how you did, you just chose one that looked white to you. You don't like 5800K because it looks blue to you. But it only looks blue in certain context! And there's more, did you know that at lower luminance level, your neutral white will seem more blue?.

Additionally, you don't need the full continuous spectrum to produce the "same" white. You can just combine single RGB wavelengths to get white for example. In fact, that's exactly what we're talking about as we're presumably both looking at the image on RGB screens. But you run into the same problem, because there's no single definition of what exact wavelength red, green or blue is, nor what their relative power should be to produce "neutral" white. But of course this "RGB white" only looks white to humans, some animals would see a different color from the full spectral white.

I am talking about what color it is

But color is perception and only that. You can talk about temperatures and wavelengths but from a physics point of view they're just that - temperatures and wavelengths, not colors! When you go shopping for a laser, you buy a 450 nm or 473 nm or 488 nm laser. You don't buy "blue laser" because all these three numbers are "blue".

Color (American English) or colour (Commonwealth English) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though color is not an inherent property of matter, color perception is related to an object's light absorption, reflection, emission spectra and interference.

(...)

Most light sources emit light at many different wavelengths; a source's spectrum is a distribution giving its intensity at each wavelength. Although the spectrum of light arriving at the eye from a given direction determines the color sensation in that direction, there are many more possible spectral combinations than color sensations. In fact, one may formally define a color as a class of spectra that give rise to the same color sensation, although such classes would vary widely among different species, and to a lesser extent among individuals within the same species. In each such class, the members are called metamers of the color in question. This effect can be visualized by comparing the light sources' spectral power distributions and the resulting colors.

[1]

[-] Senex@reddthat.com 3 points 1 year ago

Nerds trying to out-science each other. This is what I loved about Reddit. Thank you Lemmy, I feel at home.

this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
139 points (90.2% liked)

You Should Know

33393 readers
2 users here now

YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.

All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.



Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:

**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities:

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

Credits

Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS