Is Black a Colour? Examining the Definition and Perception of Black as a Colour

[zoobyshoe]

Well, these aren't paint colours, just colloquialisms. Crimson Lake is actually a Crayola colour.

Well, it's a mixed bag. Some colors are named for the source they're derived from:

"lake
1 a : a purplish red pigment prepared from lac or cochineal b : any of numerous usually bright translucent organic pigments composed essentially of a soluble dye absorbed on or combined with an inorganic carrier"

and others are invented labels for a hue that might be mixed from who knows what different sources.

I expect zinc white to contain zinc oxide and be consistent across manufacturers. The same for yellow ochre and its derivatives, cobalt blue, cadmium red, etc.

"Raspberry" and "Limepeel", I don't expect to be made from fruit, and am not surprised if there's an inconsistancy between two different manufacturers who both use these names for something.

 

[DaveC426913]

You might be interested in a book called https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812971426/?tag=pfamazon01-20. The author travels the world to explore the origin of colours, from the white clays in Australia to the red cochineal bugs of Brazil.

 

[zoobyshoe]

You might be interested in a book called https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812971426/?tag=pfamazon01-20. The author travels the world to explore the origin of colours, from the white clays in Australia to the red cochineal bugs of Brazil.

Sounds like exactly the kind of book that would interest me just now.

Send it to:

Mr. Z. Shoe
Zoobie Brush Shelter
Tecolote Canyon
San Diego, Ca.

 

[LHarriger]

Technically, the only necessary condition of black is "no light is emitted from it."

Why must light not be emitted?
Consider a thin film such as a bubble. The bubble does reflect light back, but undergoes a 180 phase change when reflecting off the inner surface while rays on the outer surface do not experience a phase change at all. The thinnest part of the bubble does not provide ample path length difference between waves and as a result the waves cancel causing black. So it seems to me that it is safe to say waves can leave from a substance in the direction of your eye and still result in black or am I missing something? Does the fact that their superposition results in zero truly cause the waves to no longer exist?

 

[thiotimoline]

Ok if most people say that black is an absence of colour, then is black a colour? In addition, if some light comes back to our eyes and we perceive it as a colour, then by the definition of black, no light comes back to us, hence there is no colour. By saying this, does that mean than an absence of colour = transparent?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Ok if most people say that black is an absence of colour, then is black a colour? In addition, if some light comes back to our eyes and we perceive it as a colour, then by the definition of black, no light comes back to us, hence there is no colour. By saying this, does that mean than an absence of colour = transparent?

The notion of black as a color preceeded the scientific understanding of the cause of the phenomenon of color by tens of thousands of years. It arises from the nomenclature for pigments. Primitive man, for instance, smeared himself with soot and charcoal in preparation for rituals and the color of it had specific meaning. The color had to be named to distinguish it from the white china clay he might use on a different occasion or the yellow ochre he might use on another.

We can call black a color because it's part and parcel of the in-place nomenclature for pigments.

A lady goes into a fabric store and hands the clerk a list of "colors" she needs: red, orange, black. She's making a halloween costume. Black is tacitly accepted as a proper color, no one gets upset, no one has been harmed.

Although it's nice to understand that the phenomenon of black results from the absense of the EM waves that cause the other colors, the notion of banging your head against the wall wondering if it's still proper to refer to it as a color is an obvious waste of time.

 

[arjijon]

how do you define colours?

 

[Big Bill]

No, it is still just the absence of color. If it absorbs all radiation, then it doesn't reflect any to your eyes and your eyes see nothing.

Absence of reflected light then, surely. That which does not reflect the light may be described as black. Black can have many meanings, though. Is it a wave or a particle or both? Black is certainly a colour in loose parlance, but perhaps not strictly speaking. I go for the manifestation of the absence of reflected light.

BB

 

[Ironman Joe]

If you add black to a "colour" you will change that colour. If black were not a colour, how could it change a colour? It is a matter of reflection. Black doesn't reflect any light WE can see. There are, for example, insects that can see colours we can't. Just because we can't see it, doesn't mean it's not a colour. Think about it, the only time we can't see black is when everything around a black object is black, add the tiniest bit of reflection to the surroundings, and the black object becomes visible. It's a colour, get over it.

 

[DaveC426913]

If you add black to a "colour" you will change that colour. If black were not a colour, how could it change a colour?

1] If we're talking about pigments, then most poeple agree that black is a colour. But not because of your argument. By your argument, water is a colour, since adding water to a colour, will get you a different colour too.

2] If we're not talking about pigments, and we are talking about light from an illuminated source, please demonstrate how you will (and I quote) "add black". I am not aware of any lights that emit light that is black. Are you?

It's a colour, get over it.

Don't be snotty.

 

[Ironman Joe]

Not trying to be snotty, just looking for a laugh. No there is no such thing as black light, unless your a hippy from the 60s. Space is not black, because any light continues until it strikes something reflective, it's transparent. Black holes are truly black, bacause light that strikes them just turns into matter on the surface. Shine a light on a black object, and you will see it. Shine a light on a black hole, which is still an object, you still won't see it. Black as a pigment is a color, in the realm of illumination, it does not exist.

 

[lotrgreengrapes7926]

This reminds me of the debate of Pluto's...planethood.
The only reasons you would see a black object are
1) it's not truly black and reflects some light,
2) you "see" it because it is different from its surroundings.
If you were in a sealed room, painted totally black, and you shined a flash light against a wall, you would still see nothing (except for maybe reflection of dust in the air).

 

[DaveC426913]

This reminds me of the debate of Pluto's...planethood.
The only reasons you would see a black object are
1) it's not truly black and reflects some light,
2) you "see" it because it is different from its surroundings.
If you were in a sealed room, painted totally black, and you shined a flash light against a wall, you would still see nothing (except for maybe reflection of dust in the air).

I find it interesting that I could paint that room six thousand different kinds of red and we'd still call it red. But that is not true of painting it black. If you pick up any light from it at all, you'll tell me what colour has been added to the black.

The colour "red" (or "green" or whatever) can have a nigh-infinite variety to them, yet this "black" has only a single flavour.

If black is merely a colour like every other colour, why does it follow rules so stringent as to be impossible to execute in real life?

That seems suspicious to me in terms of whether we can call it a colour, even in pigments. It seems to be more of an ideal concept.

 

[leemuhammad]

Black is the opposite of color, you must have light to have color. All colors come from Black.

 

[disregardthat]

All colors come from black?

The way we understand black is the absence of it. When we read the words here at the forum, we don't actually see them, we anly see the absence of light, which form letters in our head. I have read many stupid things here, but I must say I agree most with zoobyshoe.

I have not read the whole topic, but the one who said oxygen is black, has got it all wrong. We see an object as black if it absorbs the light with wavelengths we can see, and does not emit any light in the frequenzies we can see. Oxygen does not ABSORB any of the light in the frequenzies, (if it does it must be minimal, because we can't see the absence of any color), the light that we can see, goes through them. It doesn't get the right amount of energy to "knock" the electrons to a higher level to emit electromagnetic radiation. That's why we see them as transparent.

I may have expalined myself a bit flawfully, but the reason of that is that I can't find words for everything i mean.

 

[debeng]

color is just our perception, and i am just beginning to think it isn't any physical thing at all. what if only we humans (or even only mammals) got cones in our eyes so that we coould define the different wavelength as clours. what if we never had had them and we would only be limited to the rods. wat if we would otherwise had perceived them to be different or just opposite. colors were coined as per our perception, not according to its phyiscal properties. it is not yet all physical. we can perceive color, if we percieve abasence of it, that is BLACK. black is no colour " according to phyics" but it is as per our perception...

 

[Ironman Joe]

If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there, does it make a noise? No it does not. It makes a sound. Some one has to be there to interpret that sound, and classify it as a "noise". The moon robs the color from our sight, blue is gray, and yellow white...If we did a spectral analysis of the blue, would it still be blue, would the yellow still be yellow? OH, I'm SO confused.

 

[ganon00]

black is a color its as simple as that, little jimmy when he mixes all his colors together what does he get... oooh he gets black. Note black is not the absence of color.

 

[disregardthat]

EDIT: "The way we understand black is the absence of LIGHT***"

 

[thiotimoline]

EDIT: "The way we understand black is the absence of LIGHT***"

If blue light comes to our eyes, we see it as blue colour. But since black means absence of light, no light reaches us, then can we still say black is a colour? In addition, what's the wavelength of black? Within the visible light spectrum of 400nm and 700nm?

 

[Ironman Joe]

Ok, black is not a color to us. Who can say, that out there in the vast expanse of the universe, there is not a species that can not see red. They can see black quite well, but red excapes them. What color is red...in the moon light?
I declare this horse dead, may it rest in peace.

 

[DaveC426913]

I declare this horse dead, may it rest in peace.

The irony here is that the thread had been dead and buried for a week, and it was Joe that resurrected it on the 23rd.

 

[Ironman Joe]

Fun wasn't it?

 

[vizblue]

Black is a pigment colour...we use it every day, example marking with pencil etc. Paint companies manufacture it, and is one of their biggest selling product,
black paint is required by the industries most of the time..

 

[Danger]

Black is a pigment colour

A contradiction in terms. By definitions that I'm familiar with from graphic design, colour and pigment are not the same thing. A pigment is a substance that gives the viewer the impression of seeing a particular colour.

 

[D H]

Is black a color? Technically, no. But suppose your SO asked you "I don't know if my black dress looks good with this top. Should I pick some other color?" I hope you would be righteously slapped if you responded "What do you mean? black isn't a color."

Is black a pigment? This is much easier to answer.

The US Patent Office seems to think black is a pigment color. There have been http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...nt&FIELD1=ABTX&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PTXT" issued since 1976 with black pigment in the abstract.

The "Colour Index International", jointly maintained by the Society of Dyers and Colourists and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists seems to think it black is a pigment color. The "gold standard" ... umm "black standard" ... is carbon black, aka "CI Pigment Black 7". http://www.jamesmbrown.co.uk/heubach/colour%20index.htm" .

 

[disregardthat]

It is not very hard to understand that black is just absence of visible light. Therefore, not light...

In pigment colours, we say that black is a colour, but that does not mean that the black pigment colour emit any visible light.

I have a question, if a hypothetical gas absorbed all visible light but red, would we see it as similar as a gas that absorbed all visible light, and emitted red? (assuming the light source lightning up the gas also hit our eyes) The absorbed light is transformed to heat for this gas.