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The sky and ocean are not always blue. For most cultures on Earth, the last color they named was blue --- this is thought to be due to its rarity in nature. U
by thevibesman 10y ago
The sky and ocean are not always blue.
For most cultures on Earth, the last color they named was blue --- this is thought to be due to its rarity in nature.
Up through the Renaissance, the pigment for blue paint was made from Lapis Lazuli which made blue a very expensive paint and rare in most art. This is another sign of the rarity of blue in nature as pigments for other colors were much easier to come by.
I haven't listened to this episode of Radiolab in a while, but I think it provides more info/source on both of these points: http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/
There is also an interesting anecdote where one of the interviewees tells the story about teaching his daughter colors. He and his wife made the decision not to tell her what color the sky was; he would go on walks with his daughter and ask her to identify the colors of various plants and objects, when asked about the sky for a while she didn't have an answer and when she finally did she said its as "white" not "blue" --- which does seem like a better way to describe the sky since even on a clear day the brightest parts can look almost white; but someone told me once it was blue.
- JackFr 10y agoNo mention of blue in the whole of the Illiad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_Homer_and_the_Homeric_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_Homer_and_the_Homer... (Source of the famous 'wine-dark sea')
- wlesieutre 10y ago> For most cultures on Earth, the last color they named was blue --- this is thought to be due to its rarity in nature. And for the sky and water that we'd now call blue, there was no need to differentiate between blue and green. You might want to tell someone "Don't pick the green fruit, only the ones that have turned red," so having a single word for green and red would be a problem. But the sky is always going to be either blue, gray, or red, so a single greenblue word doesn't constrain your communication about it. I can think of a couple exceptions, like blueberries (where you can refer to their darkness instead of hue for ripeness) and green tinted skies in severe storms, but it definitely makes sense that the word for blue would be invented last.
- Houshalter 10y agoBlue is also the color human vision is worst at. You have many fewer blue color receptors than green or red. Images colored blue look more blurry than ones colored green. That said, it's still one of the three basic colors humans can see. There was clearly an evolutionary advantage to seeing it. And I find it hard to believe that radiolab episode that said people literally didn't see blue, not just use a different word.
- thevibesman 10y ago> And I find it hard to believe that radiolab episode that said people literally didn't see blue, not just use a different word. The hosts did keep talking about "not being able to see blue", but I believe what the guest was getting at is that without the word for blue you see it but do not perceive it (or at least as strongly as the perception of other colors). I wonder if this is related to the color/language study talked about in this episode: http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/ (the part discussing a rat study with Charles Fernyhough).
- amelius 10y agoThe blue in LEDs was also the last (and most difficult) color to be developed. According to [1], it actually won a Nobel Prize. [1] http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2014/why-the-blue-led-should-light-up-your-life-and-won-a-nobel-prize/ http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2014/why-the-blue-led-shou...
- Camillo 10y agoThat's because of the limitations of English. Some other languages (e.g. Italian, Russian) have blue and a lighter bluish color as distinct psychological primaries. The sky would be the latter.