Buzz
How is it possible for a color you can see to not truly exist?
The reality of this phenomenon is tied to how—and why—we perceive colors. Without diving into the science, we identify colors based on their wavelengths. Think of wavelengths as the variation in the speed at which signals from a color travel to our eyes.
Each color's wavelength reaches our eyes at a different speed. Our eyes detect this information and send it to our brain, which processes it to identify the color we’re seeing. Yet, there's plenty of deception at play.
10. Purple
What's the distinction between violet and purple?
Many people often use the names violet and purple interchangeably, even though they represent distinct colors. This confusion stems from the fact that purple lacks its own specific wavelength. Unlike violet, purple is created by blending two colors or wavelengths—red and blue—together.
However, this mixing doesn't result in purple but rather green and yellow. At this point, it's essential to grasp how our brains process the colors we see.
Our eyes are capable of perceiving just three primary colors: red, blue, and green. By mixing these primary colors, we can identify a wide array of other colors. When we observe purple, it's the result of red and blue combining. While this combination should create a yellow-green shade, our brain interprets it as purple.
9. Pink
We regret to inform all the pink enthusiasts that pink is not a real color.
Similar to purple, pink doesn't have its own unique wavelength. It is visible to us because it reflects the wavelength of red. Therefore, whenever you encounter something pink, what you're actually seeing is red, making pink merely a variation of red.
As expected, you can produce pink by adding white to red. Just like how adding white to blue gives light blue, or white to green results in light green, mixing white with red creates a lighter shade of red, which we refer to as pink.
8. Magenta
It's essential to point out that pink and magenta are distinct colors, though their names are often used interchangeably. Pink is a lighter form of red, while magenta exists somewhere between red and violet.
Unlike pink, which shares the same wavelength as red, magenta does not have its own specific wavelength. This means that, technically, magenta doesn't exist. However, it appears on the color wheel and is one of the four primary colors used in printing, along with cyan, yellow, and black. So, what's going on?
Recall that magenta lies somewhere between red and violet…
It turns out that these two colors sit at opposite ends of the rainbow (think ROYGBIV), and when the brain tries to combine colors like these, it gets a bit puzzled. As a result, it does one of two things:
The first option is to produce a color right in between them, which would be green in this case. But since we can already see green, the brain takes a different route: It creates a brand-new color. That color is magenta.
7. Brown
If we asked you which color is closest to brown, you might think of black since the two have some similarities. However, the truth is a bit different. Brown and black are actually quite distant from each other. In fact, brown is much closer to orange than black. Or to put it simply, brown is orange.
Brown has a wavelength of approximately 600 nanometers, which places it somewhere between red and yellow.
"Somewhere between red and yellow?" Isn't that where orange falls? Yes, exactly. In fact, orange has a wavelength between 585 and 620 nanometers, which means brown is essentially just another shade of orange. This is why you can create brown by adding a dark color to orange. Blue and violet work, but black is the most effective.
6. Black and White
Color is a result of light, and light is made up of wavelengths. When light hits an object, the object absorbs some wavelengths and reflects others. The color we perceive is the reflected wavelength. So, for example, when you see a red car, you know it’s red because the paint absorbs the wavelengths of other colors and reflects the wavelength of red.
At times, an object can absorb every incoming wavelength, reflecting none at all. In such cases, no light or color is visible, and we refer to the object as black. On the other hand, if an object reflects all the light, we perceive a blend of every color, which appears white. So, do black and white count as colors?
No, they don't. Instead, we classify them as shades. When mixed with other colors, they influence how much light the color reflects or absorbs, thereby making the colors seem either lighter or darker depending on the situation.
And regarding black and white, the black and white that we encounter in daily life aren’t truly pure. The brightest white still absorbs some wavelengths, and the darkest black reflects a bit of light.
True white can only be observed in sunlight that hasn’t passed through Earth’s atmosphere, or that of another planet. Pure black, on the other hand, is something only found inside a black hole. These two ideas will be key in our next discussion.
5. Vantablack
At present, researchers are in an unpublicized competition to create a shade of black that is even darker than the current blackest known shade. One such example is Vantablack, which gained attention a few years ago for being the darkest black ever produced. But this raises an interesting question: Can anything actually be blacker than black?
The answer is no. As we’ve mentioned before, pure black is something we can only observe by peering into a black hole. That’s the main issue here.
The black we encounter on Earth doesn’t absorb every bit of light that hits it. As a result, it is somewhat brighter than it should be, making it technically a very dark gray. Yet, we call it black because it is the deepest shade of black we can produce without complicating things further.
In essence, what researchers are really doing isn’t trying to create a black darker than black. Instead, they are working to recreate the purest form of black, the kind we would encounter inside a black hole.
Since black is essentially the absence of light, it’s extremely difficult to achieve this shade using colors, light, or pigments. This is why researchers are focusing on materials that aren’t just black but are also capable of absorbing as much light as possible.
That’s why we can’t paint a vehicle with Vantablack—it's not a color but a material. Specifically, Vantablack is made of carbon nanotubes derived from air. It’s so fragile that researchers avoid even touching it, as any contact would cause it to collapse and disintegrate instantly.
4. Silver
Is silver considered a color? Most people would say yes, but they’d find it difficult to recreate on a phone screen, computer, or even in a traditional painting. So again, is silver a color? The answer is no.
Silver is better described as a 'metallic hue,' a term used to capture the shiny quality of metals like gold and silver. However, this shine isn't a color in itself—it’s simply light reflecting off the metal’s surface.
Here lies the challenge: For silver to appear in text and artwork, it must reflect a metallic shine; otherwise, it just looks like a dull gray. This makes it nearly impossible to represent in written text or hand-painted art without mixing gray with finely powdered silver (or another metal). In digital art, silver is created by adjusting the light and shadows surrounding an object.
So, does altering the light around gray or adding a metallic sheen transform it into a color? The answer is no. Any color would appear shiny if mixed with a fine, reflective powder. Unless we discover a way to create a shiny silver from scratch without using shiny powders or manipulating light, silver will remain gray. Sorry, silver!
3. Off White
In recent years, off-white clothing, bags, shoes, and various fashion items have become increasingly popular. It has even extended into home décor. But what exactly is off white, and can it be considered a color?
To clarify, Off-White (with a hyphen and capital W) is the name of a fashion brand. Off white (without the hyphen and with a lowercase w) is the color we’re discussing here.
Off white isn’t a single color, but rather a group of colors so light that they resemble white. To create off white, we mix a lot of white (in terms of shade) with small amounts of bright colors such as yellow and brown (remember, brown is essentially orange).
We refer to the resulting shade as off white, but it is actually a very bright yellow, a very bright brown (or orange), and so on. It’s not a darker version of white. Darkened white is gray. Any other variation is simply a brighter form of the color mixed with white.
2. Neon
Contrary to what fashion websites might suggest, neon isn’t a color. For one, neon isn’t just one color but a whole category of intensely bright colors.
Neon gas, from which the term neon color originates, is an orange-red chemical element found on the periodic table, alongside gold, silver, oxygen, hydrogen, helium, and others. It’s also part of the same family as helium gas.
To generate the classic orange-red neon 'color,' you’d need to pass light through neon gas inside a bulb or fluorescent tube, making it emit an orange-red glow. This leads to the question: Does passing light through a gas turn the gas into a color?
Our issues with neon go beyond the surface. As we noted earlier, neon gas emits a reddish-orange glow. To achieve other colors, various gases, sometimes mixed with neon, are required, which we still call neon, even when neon is not involved in the mix.
This reveals that most neon lights actually don’t contain neon. Much like the terms 'gold' and 'silver', it’s impossible to create a true neon color without using artificial light effects. Simply put: true neon can’t be replicated in art, text, or fabric, as these things don't emit light.
What about those neon-colored shirts and bags on Amazon? They're not made of neon at all; they're just brightly-colored designs that mimic neon’s intensity.
1. Gold
If silver is associated with gray, then gold can only be defined as yellow.
Just like silver, recreating gold in text, art, or digital formats is impossible without combining yellow paint with a bit of sparkling powder or adjusting the hues and lighting around yellow. However, gold has its own unique characteristics.
Gold, in theory, should have a silvery tone, much like silver, which would have turned gold into another shade of gray. But instead, gold takes on a yellow hue. Why is this?
The explanation comes from science. Albert Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity is at play here. Do you recall E=mc2? That’s the principle in action.
Gold, like all substances, is made up of atoms. The electrons within these atoms travel at such high speeds that they cannot go any faster. As a result, the extra energy they absorb increases their mass (the amount of matter they possess) rather than their speed.
This leads to the atoms absorbing shorter wavelengths, especially blue, and allowing the longer wavelengths, particularly yellow, to pass through, which is what we perceive with our eyes.
