the colour and the nature of the mix
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Colour, also spelled color, the aspect of any object that may be described in terms of hue, lightness, and saturation. In physics, colour is associated specifically with electromagnetic radiation of a certain range of wavelengths visible to the human eye. Radiation of such wavelengths constitutes that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum known as the visible spectrum—i.e., light.
colour; characteristics of hue, saturation, and brightness
colour; characteristics of hue, saturation, and brightness
Colours result from the electromagnetic radiation of a range of wavelengths that are visible to the eye. The three characteristics of hue, saturation, and brightness are commonly used to distinguish one colour from another.
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Vision is obviously involved in the perception of colour. A person can see in dim light, however, without being able to distinguish colours. Only when more light is present do colours appear. Light of some critical intensity, therefore, is also necessary for colour perception. Finally, the manner in which the brain responds to visual stimuli must also be considered. Even under identical conditions, the same object may appear red to one observer and orange to another. Clearly, the perception of colour depends on vision, light, and individual interpretation, and an understanding of colour involves physics, physiology, and psychology.
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An object appears coloured because of the way it interacts with light. The analysis of this interaction and the factors that determine it are the concerns of the physics of colour. The physiology of colour involves the eye’s and the brain’s responses to light and the sensory data they produce. The psychology of colour is invoked when the mind processes visual data, compares it with information stored in memory, and interprets it as colour.
This article concentrates on the physics of colour. For a discussion of colour as a quality of light, see light and electromagnetic radiation. For the physiological aspects of colour vision, see eye: Colour vision. See also painting for a discussion of the psychological and aesthetic uses of colour.
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The nature of colour
Aristotle viewed colour to be the product of a mixture of white and black, and this was the prevailing belief until 1666, when Isaac Newton’s prism experiments provided the scientific basis for the understanding of colour. Newton showed that a prism could break up white light into a range of colours, which he called the spectrum (see figure), and that the recombination of these spectral colours re-created the white light. Although he recognized that the spectrum was continuous, Newton used the seven colour names red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet for segments of the spectrum by analogy with the seven notes of the musical scale.
Newton realized that colours other than those in the spectral sequence do exist, but he noted that
all the colours in the universe which are made by light, and depend not on the power of imagination, are either the colours of homogeneal lights [i.e., spectral colours], or compounded of these.