Is White A Colour?

[The-Wolf]

ok to save hijacking this thread
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=134041&hl=

do you think white is a colour?
if yes, please provide some kind of link, quote or whatever to support your answer

if no, again plsease provide some kind of evidence to back you up?

I myself am not sure
if it is a colour, then why do we have colour photos and black & white photos?

I found this on google but it has confused me even more
http/www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/user...-a-colour-2005/

 

[wendywc]

My opinion: Yes white is a color, but it is a plain, boring, and weak color.

My pathetic link loosely supporting my opinion: http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather

To "show the white feather" is to display cowardice. In cockfighting, a white feather in the tail is considered a mark of inferior breeding. In Victorian England a purported coward would be presented with a white feather.

Another link: http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flag

The white flag is an international sign of truce or ceasefire, and request for negotiation. It is also often associated with surrender, since it is often the weaker military party which requests negotiation.

 

[andywg]

Hey Wolf, could have sworn I posted that link before on the previous thread...

Regarding photos, that is more because originally the photos were grades of light and dark, then all the colours were added.

As one of the links points out, the colours we see depend on how the light stimulates our eyes, if it stimulates all of the colour receptors at once, we see white. In that respect it is just as much a colour as other.

 

[Puffer_freak]

Oh dear...I've had this argument many times and each time I end up getting yelled at by "white-is-not-a-colour" activists.

From what I have been taught, I would have to say that yes, white is a colour.

This is because pure white (or pure white light) is made up of all colours. Black,however, is not a colour, and it is a lack or void of all colours.

While there is actually another theory which is the other way round, I think the above is main theory used scientifically.

The photograph point: Well you see, most colour photos don't have the colour black in them at all, just very dark variations, and anyway, B&W is also often known as monotone (well...it's basically the same thing).

 

[Arfie]

Yes, in my opinion white is a colour.

Quite simply if something is colourless, it is totally transparent with nothing to obscure or alter the appearance of what you are looking at.

To test this, hold a piece of white paper up and it will obscure your view, therefore it is not colourless, therefore it is a colour

Here is the wikipedia link to define the word "White", perhaps that will help

Arfie

 

[pica_nuttalli]

just to be a devil's advocate for a moment... what's a color? you have to define a category before you can start determining what belongs in it.

 

[The-Wolf]

good point Pica

colour,hue,tint,shade

 

[andywg]

As usual, wiki is your friend:

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour

The main places I saw the "black and white aren't colours" was from art teachers who stated that because the colours needed themselves to be made (you can't make white paint from mixing other paints) they were not colours.

One must remember of course that art is not everything. In art: green is blue and yellow; in light: yellow is green and red. Though it will not be true yellow...it will just excite the appropriate cones in the eye to seem yellow (i.e., it will not be the same as the yellow obtained by shining "whole" or "white" light through a prism).

Also, we must remember that all of our light comes from one source, the sun. A different start would have a different light signature and would thus light things differently. Think of the difference between how some colours look in daylight, and under yellow sodium streetlights. That effect would most likely be present were you to travel to another star system.

 

[boozybears]

have you ever tried to purchase 'white' paint? eggshell white, winter white, diamond white etc etc etc. Sure are a lot of shades for a colour that doesn't exist

 

[Dany]

[/quote]This is because pure white (or pure white light) is made up of all colours. Black,however, is not a colour, and it is a lack or void of all colours.[/quote]
bet you £10 you coudnt make white paint from other colourd paints.
so is that a bet?

 

[Puffer_freak]

No because I was talking about light there...

AND the colours need to be PURE.

 

[chishnfips]

No white isn't a colour, throughout higher art and college, white is down as a contrast not a colour.

There are two contrasts white and black. white isn't in the rainbow either lol. Also In printing we use a colur mixing system called CMYK (cyan. magenta, yellow and black.) If all these values are zero, you get white. So that would say white is not a colour.

But if you were to work on a computer in RGB format (red, green, blue) then white is made up of 255 parts red 255 parts green and 255 parts blue.

The only way you could maybe argue white is a colur is when you look at light spectrums. When White light is made up of all the colours in the spectrum.

it depends on what context you are speaking in.

 

[andywg]

Chish, you fully prove my belief. When kids are taught art, the teachers impress on them that that is the only way. I always remember one girl who disputed long and hard with her physics teacher about whether blue and green made cyan when she had been told that yellow and blue make green by her art teacher.

I would say that light is more important than art for this argument as the ability to mix colours is dependant on the materials you have (what can go into the dye to make that colour). It is the inability to mix paint/dye that reacts in the same way as light which has caused the art world to dub white a contrast and not a colour.

This is not to do with the properties of the colour (being the particular wavelength of light that stimulates the cones in our eyes) but rather the property of the material used to applie colour to canvas (or paper etc).

It is important to note that all light we see (as in that received from the sun) is somewhat yellow due to the colour of our sun, as mentioned in the link in the first post. Something which we see as red could well appear blue were we to go to a start that emitted light in the bluer end of the spectrum.

Think about how the landscape looks very silver on a clear moonlit night, as all we are getting is the light reflected by the (largely grey) moon.

Basically, white is a colour of light that can be created by mixing its constituent parts in exactly the same way as brown is. However, we do not know how to mix chemicals to create something that will reflect all colours by mixing together other chemicals that reflect other colours (unless they have much paint now than when I was at school).

 

[chishnfips]

I know its a tricky one, art and science contradict each other. Its the same with primary colours in art you are told its red blue and yellow but in physics its red green and blue.

 

[andywg]

Well, technically, the primary colours in physics are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. You can mix red green and blue together in such ways that they stimulate the cones in the eye the same as other colours, but it isn't quite the same.

Red and green can be mixed to make the cones see yellow, but they are not seeing it the same as "pure" yellow light obtained by shining a "white" light through a prism.

Why must nothing ever be simple...?