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This article is useless. Magenta is a combination of colors, and is not represented by any single wavelength of light. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Sayin
by shizcakes 18y ago
This article is useless. Magenta is a combination of colors, and is not represented by any single wavelength of light. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Saying magenta doesn't exist is like saying green paint doesn't exist, because it's a combination of blue and yellow (within subtractive primaries).
From wikipedia:
Magenta is a purplish red color evoked by lights with less power in yellowish-green wavelengths than in blue and red wavelengths (complements of magenta have wavelength 500–530 nm).[1] In light experiments, magenta can be produced by removing the lime-green wavelengths from white light. It is an extra-spectral color, meaning it cannot be generated by a single wavelength of light, being a mixture of red and blue wavelengths. The name magenta comes from the dye magenta, commonly called fuchsine, discovered shortly after the 1859 Battle of Magenta near Magenta, Italy.
- tptacek 18y agoSo, magenta : color :: c major chord : note?
- parenthesis 18y agoA single note played on an acoustic instrument is itself (typically) a compound of multiple frequencies, usually (but not in e.g. a church bell) in a more or less harmonic relationship.
- Silentio 18y agoThis is why bell choirs are either totally awful or completely amazing and never anything in between.
- likpok 18y agoFurthermore, the overtone series for a nontonal instrument exists; you can tell which of two blocks is higher pitched. But, the overtone series is not the regular one we expect from (half)?open pipes. So it is not treated in the brain as a tone.
- cchooper 18y agoThere's a difference. A chord is always composed of multiple notes. There's no single note that can sound like a chord. But a colour like yellow can be generated by a single wavelength or a combination of wavelengths that average out to yellow (so long as those wavelengths are not too far apart). So in colour there is no sharp dividing line between a 'chord' and a 'note'. Some 'chords' look like 'notes' and some 'notes' look like 'chords'. Magenta is interesting because it's always a 'chord'.
- davi 18y agosome 'notes' look like 'chords' When? [severely edited, trying to fix bad writing]
- river_styx 18y agoBasically any note played on an analog instrument has a set of overtones of various frequencies. If these tones were played a bit louder, you would hear a chord rather than a single note.
- anewaccountname 18y agoIrrelevant. "So in colour [...]" not "so in sound [...]"
- cchooper 18y agoIt's a symmetric relationship. If a note looks like a chord then a chord looks like a note. Both a mix of frequencies and a single frequency can produce the same colour, so they both look like each other.
- tjmc 18y agoI think more magenta : colour :: alloy : element
- davi 18y agoMagenta exists. But article is not useless. It is talking about perception of electromagnetic cocktail. Check out this experiment: http://www.greatreality.com/Color2Color.htm http://www.greatreality.com/Color2Color.htm [related HN thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459970 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459970]
- jcl 18y agoStill, the article should have been more careful about terminology, especially in the title. Color is a description of human visual perception, of how a set of light amplitudes and frequencies is perceived. A photograph displayed on your computer monitor has different frequencies from light given off by the photograph's subject, but it has the same colors. Magenta is definitely a color. What the author meant to say is that magenta can't be a single frequency -- but that title wouldn't have gotten as many clicks.