4 ms·
The sky is blue and so is the ocean
by octopoc 5y ago
The sky is blue and so is the ocean
- eli 5y agoIt's a fascinating phenomenon, right? Worth noting the "blue" in both those examples comes from physics not pigments.
- NoSorryCannot 5y agoThe reason pigments or anything else is blue is also because of physics.
- dTal 5y agohttps://xkcd.com/1818/ https://xkcd.com/1818/
- Agentlien 5y agoA friend of mine once claimed that the sky wasn't blue. I challenged him, expecting some argument about physics and Rayleigh scattering. Instead he looked at me and, with a straight face, said "it's the spy satellites which are blue. And there are very many."
- pengstrom 5y agoWhile true, it might be worth noting that if you grind iridescent blue material it will loose its color. Pigment will not.
- kortex 5y agoWater is "actually" blue, as in due to the chemistry of its electronic configuration. A deep column of water has a blue color in a way that other liquids, such as benzene, do not. There was a cool picture of this demonstration in one of my old chemistry books. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_of_water https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_of_water Reflection of the sky accounts for much of the color of natural bodies of water, but it's cool to know that it's blue even in the absence of blue reflection.
- mzs 5y agoand a bruise
- teawrecks 5y agoMore specifically, it is believed by historians/biologists that humans didn't evolve the ability to distinguish between shades of blue until relatively recently. The ocean and the sky are 2 of the only examples, and humans didn't spend much time in either place. A few fruits are blue, a few poisonous animals might have some blue, but the vast majority of natural things aren't blue. We have examples of ancient writings comparing the color of the ocean to the color of wine. Even now, our eyes have the fewest cones for detecting blue wavelengths, and the most for distinguishing greens. Graphical artists have to account for this literally all the time. Every digital color space we've made saves some bits by shifting more color resolution to greens and reds because no one will notice the extra blues.
- Agentlien 5y agoAs someone with deuteranomaly I find this so funny because for me blue is the color that pops and doesn't blend together with all the rest.
- monocasa 5y agoIt's not biological evolution, but linguistic evolution at play. There's a specific evolutionary pattern for color words in language found for the most part (albeit like everything in language and evolution, there's always exceptions to the pattern): All language known have terms for black and white. If a language has three color terms, the third is 'red'. If a language has four color terms, the fourth is either 'green' or 'yellow'. If a language has five color terms, the fifth is the other of 'green' or 'yellow'. If a language has six terms, the sixth is 'blue'. If a language has seven terms, the seventh is 'brown'. And from there it starts to heavily diverge with purple, pink, orange, grey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_...
- teawrecks 5y agoNot sure what you mean by, "It's not biological evolution". The linguistic phenomenon you're referencing doesn't make any sense outside the context of the specific evolutionary history of the human eye. It would be like saying the shape of something has nothing to do with the shadow it casts.