Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the Color of Light

What is the color of light? On this explainer, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice break down the different colors of light. Red hot poker, @RedHotChiliPeppers...does red really mean hot?
Learn how objects radiate electromagnetic energy and how temperature corresponds to color. Is blue really cooler? Why is Neil pissed off at photographers and water coolers? We explore temperatures at the scale of the universe and why our color associations are very earth-minded. Find out how burning printer plates and arc lamps work. What color is the sun?
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About StarTalk:
Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
#StarTalk #NeildeGrasseTyson

[@StarTalk]

Favorite new thing you learned from this Explainer - go!

[@MrKasa1989]

Still watching, ill keep ya'll posted.

[@XxTheAwokenOnexX]

My favorite new thing I learned from this video, is there is no end to Neil, and Chucks hilarious presentations. LMAO

[@biosavat9475]

Photographers are wrong , that means my cousin is wrong and Im more than happy to know that he is wrong at some kind of things

[@patrickfulford3460]

I learned that the U.S flag goes through all phases.

[@luigiluigi2098]

Learned that punching people is a good way to win an argument. Thank you Star Talk 🌟

[@ashtonvaughncharles6900]

Hey look, it's everyone's favorite time of day.

[@NineAtoms1]

And it's happening in many places.

[@fido7293]

I agree.

[@jewscontrolyou9730]

Just imagine schools could produce a product that makes people say this.

[@timothymccardell6592]

YO FACTS

[@mr.j2415]

Yup

[@LuckilyHeDied]

These two together are always such a treat. Startalk never gets old.

[@TrickOrRetreat]

Love it so much 🤗

[@Subfightr]

I just wish he would allow chuck to do more than be the funny man. He is clearly brilliant and Neil cuts him off all the time. Chuck often knows what he is saying is incorrect, but he is just playing the part of Joe Everyman for our benefit, Chuck will set them up SO Neil can knock them down, but Neil won't let him.

[@biosavat9475]

Neil gets soo excited while talking , he looks like a 5 year old explaining how a game he created in school works

[@sweetdurt2143]

This is the way

[@sownheard]

That's why I like learning from Neil. His way of explaining things is progressive and detailed yet not detailed enough that it becomes boring. Learning with questions is definitely the best way to learn.

[@dreamrestore213]

Yea.... He loves to hear himself talk....

[@Anti-HyperLink]

@@sownheard Except when he cuts Chuck off and doesn't let him ask questions.

[@GrabinGears]

He loves what he does

[@80sGamerLady]

My mother who only had a GED when I was growing up was pretty smart but not bookish. She would say things like, "Blue fire is hotter than yellow/orange/red fire." And also brought up stars as an example. It's nice to have that validated again. 👍

[@frogz]

same!!! to everything you just said!

[@Shiny_Hunter_Rob]

Can't wait to hear Blue Hot Chili Peppers' new album!

[@salsamorim]

That's the color you turn when eating them! ;)

[@scottallencarr]

I heard The White Stripes are getting hotter though.

[@OmegaRedFan]

That band chickenshit compared to the almighty "King Crimson"

[@joekenorer]

The best and most consistently interesting show on the internet.

[@oliversmalley7771]

Without question

[@GrabinGears]

Why am I just finding this channel 😠

[@joseimpact]

no cap

[@Derpster2493]

10:08 "That's a very high temperature arc" 10:11 "...and it was the coolest thing in the world"

[@subnormalbark2683]

Remember when u wrote this comment?

[@Thecastofthelast]

Well do ya, punk?

[@phillyjawnlolo089]

The mental image of Neil glaring at a water cooler is hilarious to me🤣

[@futurerandomness1620]

Just make it easy red is hot and have the cold be black or silver. The colour of metal before it starts to glow

[@anthonycraig274]

@@futurerandomness1620 better still transparent. As just above Kelvin is invisible.

[@tadgh1210]

What i love about Neil explaining things is , he leaves me with 0 questions and all answer

[@TheJasonmassia]

My reaction was the exact same as Chucks: 6min11sec.. "Really Neil? THATS the hill you're gonna die on?"

[@LeeSpelledL-i]

So...singing TheBlues is, now, my - preferred, way to warm myself. Thank you. 🥳

[@vesanius1]

This is one thing that has bothered me for so long without fully even realizing why. Now I realize why. It's always bothered me that "cooler" lamps have more kelvins than the "warmer" lamps and it has caused confusion so many time.

[@scottman7357]

I used to work in printing as well. It's cool that Chuck is so knowledgeable!!

[@biosavat9475]

Ya

[@mysticxiiii]

Seeing NDT so emotionally distraught over this is priceless

[@davidlynn7161]

Loved this video. As a trained photographer I know that warm tones are at the low end of the spectrum (colder) and cold tones are at the high end (warmer), we are taught this. Many things in photography are counterintuitive, you just learn it and roll with it. As a blacksmith I know that red is a colder heat and yellow is very hot, at blue or white you have burned you metal and need to start over. I think you explained it very well.

[@kenstrauss5841]

I’m 70 years old and I just learned something new. As a theater lighting technician I kinda knew you had to increase bulb temps to get a cooler light but you can’t always do that in the theater fixtures. That’s why we use color gels in the fixtures.

[@Ryan-tk]

A Photon checks into a hotel, and when the bellhop asks if he can help with its luggage, the photon says: "I don't have any, because I'm traveling light"

[@iwh7523]

Neil's face when he gets close to the camera and says, "I HATE THIS!!!" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@bruceneeley1724]

Brilliant explainer. As a life long astronomy geek and an artist I can easily relate to the contradictions regarding temperature. I have found I have to wear to hats. It can get to be a real pain. By the same token in physics the absence of color is black and all colors of the spectrum combined are white light. In painting all colors make black and the absence of color is white. I do hope your explainer opens some eyes. Thanks guys!!

[@SamusSelf-Destruct]

I’m both a physicist and a filmmaker and I still constantly struggle with this.

[@jeromepaul1300]

When I watch star talk, I feel smarter for the day...

[@Dmitri09Dmitri]

Dr. Tyson, first I would like to say thank you for all your work and explanations. Second, I would love to hear your thoughts on negative mass fluids as they pertain to Newtonian physics and if you feel as if it could lead to a connection to negative mass for FTL travel. Thank you again for all that you do.

[@TuxedoMaskMusic]

7:13 The passion of the one and only Neil Tyson everyone! Absolutely unmatched in integrity!

[@AV8R_Surge]

I had a similar problem with accounting when they introduced contra-assets. I couldn't grasp the idea of subtracting an asset vs adding. It was inverse and I simply had to just say "ok".

[@sifuculreif6448]

I haven't taken accounting, but I assume it's basically, a thing you own that Hurts your net value, rather than Helping it?

[@davej9228]

like me not grasping algebra. How do you add,subtract, multiply, divide, LETTERS?

[@adamthomas1222]

Well that thing about blue being cold, when you go up to the artic, you actually see those glaciers being blue. So I feel like that works

[@Mehwhatevr]

yeah. the issue is that on Earth, temperatures range from ice -> fire. ice/snow/water being cool things. and blue. living things like plants, green things, being in the middle. fire (usually red) being hot. it's a bit emotional but it's also our experience. while it's true everything that he says about stars, it's not relevant to humanity in general. As someone well aware of the physics, I still think he's silly to complain. for one I could imagine a photographer making the same complaints. blue things are cold. look at glaciers! The reality is that the artists are not the ones combining numbers and art. the lamps are not created by photographers, they're created by engineers. They put the numbers on the bulbs to comply with international standards, and to help people like Neil communicate what he wants. If Neil really cares about this, maybe he should stop walking into a photography store and asking for a warmer lamp. Perhaps he should start talking like a scientists/engineer and ask for a lamp with a higher temperature. What temperature is this? 4500K? can I see one around 9000K instead? That's why the numbers exist! That's why physicists created the numbers. To clear up confusion. start using them like a physicist!

[@fuckel98]

What a lovely surprise to come home to their video :) Niel and Chuck are always great to watch and listen to

[@trth1]

I hadn't thought about the inconsistency between how we represent temperature culturally and the actual colors based on temperature since high school. I remember spending a good amount of time focused on that instead of listening to whatever was being taught in that particular lesson that day.

[@leonardtramiel8704]

As a fellow astrophysicist I have exactly the same issues. Thanks for doing this video!

[@michaelfields2050]

Love your videos man love to meet you some day

[@TabernadoDani]

Actually, as a photographer, we do learn/use light temperature like astrophysicists As in, we know that the higher K (temperature) lights, are the white/blue ones and the lower temperature ones, usually the older filament ones, are the orange-ish ones. Also when balancing white/editing the light temperature in pictures, it's also in kelvin/hotter is bluer, etc. Well, I guess it depends from photographer to photographer, but that was definitely part of my learning experience

[@jamesb1856]

The issue is perception, and in some cases reality . The thermosphere being the hottest part of the atmosphere is only about 1000 degrees Celsius, but a blue sky is most often visible in winter when humidity is at it's lowest. But anyone who has handled a torch knows that a blue flame is hotter that a red or orange one. But then again there are differences in reflected and projected light. This discussion can go so much deeper. Light and gravity seem to be the kings of the quantum and astrophysics world.

[@bernernovak]

Perhaps he knows the feeling I feel when a scientist uses imperial units

[@jeanine219]

Thank you for sharing your brilliance Neil DeGrasse Tyson!!

[@Nina9er]

As a lighting designer electrical engineer this always got me. My technical training in order to understand light conflicts with the language I use to talk to architects. I thought I was the only one with this issue with CCT and tunable light warm-cool. Love this!

[@michaelgahagan2669]

For my first job, I worked as a projectionist in a movie theater. Theater movie projectors used arc lights to project the movie onto the screen. I had to carefully adjust the arc light to prevent burning the film.

[@Kindrick]

This is why I appreciated Azula in Avatar: The Last Airbender. She used blue fire, but nobody said she was using cold fire, no, it just made her seem like a more dangerous villain. My only complaint about it, is that her blue fire didn't actually confer her any advantage, and she ended up being on equal footing with Zuko, who used normal fire, and still not as dangerous as Ozai, who also used normal fire, just more of it.

[@combatkiller7881]

You can actually see all the colours of light and heat with an Oxy-Torch.

[@vusi.mbili86]

Very true

[@omardaniel1]

I don’t know how anyone could dislike any of these videos they are always fun and entertaining. Neil always has fun facts. Today at 44 yrs of age I learned the sun is actually white. I knew about blue spectrum from those super intense lighters. Very fun video

[@MrKasa1989]

I've learned I need to reverse my bathtub knobs. Thanks guys!😄😄😄

[@gavic85]

I’m so glad I was born in the same time line as this two …..

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

These two, or this pair, please. I mean, yeah, I agree with your sentiment. But the "this two" bugs the bleep out of me.

[@mitzadumi]

Imagine Neil listening to One Republic - Apologize when they sing "I loved you with a fire red, now it's turning blue" wanting to mean their love is fading 🤣

[@iso6203]

Nostalgia! Chuck explaining the printing process from this dad's company. My dad also owned a printing company, I remember that printing process and seeing all those equipment. IT WAS SO COOL!!!!!!!🙂

[@gleefulz618]

Each episode that I watch, in every topic within a topic I try to understand by guessing what and where the point of the topic is leading to. I don’t like school never really did but some how I can sit for hours listening and understanding to every word you say. Keep this up Neil and chuck you guys are the best🙏🏽 I wish I had a teacher like this

[@elijahpeters4210]

Always love being schooled by this man !!

[@ZeniferJenZ]

You had me at✨ light ✨

[@Games_and_Music]

They had me at

[@mameemia]

They had me at 🤠🌛🌛

[@Games_and_Music]

@@ZeniferJenZ i have no idea wtf you're on about, i simply made a joke, and i was telling "you" about what i thought about "them"

[@kevinmorris7722]

As a user of welders and torches I can tell you Neil is not only correct but it's easy to see with practical tooling. The torches are blue flame and the metals first glow red then yellow then white.

[@sonofamerc]

We need more big brain talks! Love to see where the conversation goes.

[@Morpheux1]

6:15 Guess is just like saying "Crank up the A/C" when you really want to make the temp lower 🤷🤦

[@Chris-hx3om]

Yeah, my pet hate!

[@AngelNearDestruction]

Much like Neil's misunderstanding, this statement misunderstands the intent of the statement. Crank up means increase the power, not the temperature. An A/C uses electrical power to cool, and therefor has an inverse relationship, unlike say a heater where increasing the power also increases the temperature. Neil made a similar misunderstanding on this topic, as a scene's temperature isn't about the physical temperature, but the relative temperature when comparing the light to the scene itself. If the scene is 56°, it is 1% of the temperature of daylight. If you use a 6000° lamp, the scene is less than 1% of the temperature of light and is therefor cooler relative to the other. It's all relative, you have to consider how everything is related to each other before you can make assertions about how they compare to others.

[@F_L_U_X]

9:23 my dad was a printer, and my mom... Well... She was only a fax machine.

[@aaronseet2738]

As a photographer myself, I've always wondered how they even came up with that colour "temperature" numerical system.

[@00Skyfox]

In photo editing when you want to "warm up" the white balance you increase the white balance number, ie. the ° kelvin, and that makes the image yellower. That's because the software is expecting the light source to be hotter and therefore bluer, so it compensates by shifting colors more towards the yellow tones in order to achieve what you determine white to be in the image. It's just the opposite when "cooling down" the white balance by decreasing the number and shifting it into the bluer tones as it expects and compensates for a cooler, yellower light source.

[@marianoquiroga1976]

Blue Hot Chilli Peppers... Take that 🔥🤣

[@rickyrodriguez5744]

Neil, you could NEVER have issues. Why? Because your Neil.

[@JohnyG29]

you're

[@randomtask9029]

Even more confusing is in Britain they have C for cold and H for hot on the taps (faucets in American parlance), but in some European countries they have C and F meaning the opposite! C for calda, chaud (hot) and F for freddo, froid (cold)! When on holiday as a boy, I used to think it meant C for cold and F for find out!

[@klausm5460]

In German when something is driving you mad we say 'Bringt mich zur Weißglut' which means 'Makes me glowing white'.

[@MarcelHuguenin]

You just have to be made aware of this mind-bending twist to be f*cked up for life now whenever seeing water-cooler spigots or ordinary water faucets 🤪Thank you Neil 😜

[@vincevvn]

Wait until you hear about speed limits, “hey 60 mph isn’t fast! Asteroids are much faster!”

[@tmeyer2022]

Let me point out to all, that photographers were not the people who set the the numeric value to the color spectrum. It was scientists who set that 'Kelvin' standard. Neither did photographers determine the other numeric color values to hue, saturation, luminence, and tone. Guess who does that (hint: the word begins and ends with 's' and has the letters 'cientist' in the middle).

[@jeromepaul1300]

Understood, he mentioned that...eye roll

[@silvershadow013]

But the photographers ask for the set to be "cooler" with a higher temp light...

[@joeyburrell3207]

Star talk will last as long as the stars, It’ll shine and take forever to get old. ❤️ it!

[@ANOLDMASTERJUKZ]

All reflected wave patterns invert phase, so also dose the vernacular.

[@shubhsrivastava4417]

Can you continue the temperature explainer series with explaining how the concept of temperature fades away where there are very less particles 👍🏻

[@homewall744]

Neil must really hate terms like "cool" and "hot" when applied to people.

[@QQChana]

Thank you for clearing that out! I’m a photographer and science lover and I have the same issue.

[@KapuAdam]

What I really want to know is this: In the visible region of the EM spectrum we can "distinguish" wavelengths by the color of light. Hypothetically, if we could see in the UV or IR regions of the spectrum would there be an analog in those regions?

[@Cebos359]

This folks is what it looks like when nerds get mad 😂

[@nuruddinpeters9491]

This... This is why I love StarTalk!

[@w0nd3rlu573r]

Ah, I so much needed that on Monday morning, but Wednesday evening will do too :D

[@WilliamBrownMBA]

In the early days of motion pictures, they lit everything with arc lamps because it was the only thing bright enough to expose old film at 16 & 24 frames per second.

[@aerojef]

Now I understand when I light a blow torch, it's blue. Great video!

[@caparicap]

Thank you for the content !

[@orilocs]

You two make learning fun 🤩

[@williambiggs3699]

On your water cooler, take note of whether blue is on the right or left... I've noticed a convention that seems to indicate that the word on the right is always longer than the word on the left, just as the word right is longer than the word left. Examples hot, cold... Driver, passenger... Wide, narrow...(electric outlets) Port, starboard... Red, green...(boat lights) And on your cooler perhaps... Red, blue😁

[@ares3914]

I do HVAC and refrigeration and when we braze copper pipes the flames have to be over 1200 degrees to melt the rod and make the seal on copper fittings and at that temperature the flame isn't red anymore, its blue. When have about an inch of blue flame leaving the torch , we know the temp is right to weld fittings together

[@unedited8204]

I friggin love Neil and Chuck... explainers and laugh-makers. Awesome. I have one issue though, after I watched this I punched a photographer and I'm wondering if Neil will testify for me in court and pay my legal fees.... Keep these coming (the videos, not the punches).

[@shepardjager929]

I'd love a video about kinds of stars, like supergiant starts and how are they classified

[@travissmith9046]

Checking in from the Great Lakes Region where we are known to occasionally have blue ice in winter.

[@torodatruth]

CLEAR "color" for the cooler water handle. Blue (or red) for hot and clear for "cool" temps. :) ~from an unfinished architecture major with a love for science stuff.

[@tanyavoneitzen3161]

You two are so much to learn from.

[@tanyavoneitzen3161]

Tried to say fun😂

[@tar_a]

For User experience what color would you suggest we use to indicate the cold tap if we use blue for the hot tap?

[@Anonymous-md2qp]

It would be safer to keep it as red=hot. That is universal around the world.

[@jakespatz4474]

Lower/higher works better for describing light color ime, since it correlates to freq, temp, and perceived brightness all at the same time

[@S13Reborn]

3:46 Pluto talking to "red hot", I understand how you feel....

[@gooneybird808]

you guys should talk about the science behind film photography...its amazing. also I've gotten welders flashing on a site I was working at with my contacts on and my contact melted in my eye. they were about 10 feet under me and I accidentally looked down. ;)

[@jeanine219]

So low energy to high energy: radio waves < microwaves < infrared < red < orange < yellow < green < blue < violet < ultraviolet < x-rays < gamma rays. I remember that from one of your previous videos.

[@KismetBP]

🤯 @ 3:40 Love this! I’m 51 and try to learn something new everyday. Thanks Neil. ❤️👍 Side Note: I once was at the beach in California & People where throwing in the fire pits Pallets of wood + Magnesium and it burned White, Crazy peeps, but cool effect. All makes sense now.

[@KetogenicGuitars]

I have 2 issues to explore from desert of issues. 1.Calorie. Explain food calorie and normal calorie. Shouting allowed! 2.Explain Hubble. How small(or big) objects it can see. Or how big are small and small big. Could you bring it to human scale somehow.

[@drifty3755]

I love StartTalk

[@jeremyilles5163]

I really like these videos they are very informative and you gentlemen keep it interesting. I’m just wondering why white is supposed to be all colors and black is supposed to be no colors. Yet when you mix all the colors you get black.

[@Sunshine-fi5fq]

I missed you guys ☀️ I was just lil bit scared of your blue hot roast 😂🤦🏼

[@georgedinca7926]

A good example to see all 3 colour steps is when you take a nail for example and put it under a flame...first it starts to glow red and then white and as it gets hotter it turns a blue ish colour👍

[@adityachilbule625]

for the change, we need a T-shirt saying '' Blue Hot is the new Red Hot''

[@Teo117]

Listening to Neil speaking is of my favorite. Chuck means well, but Neil is the only one I love to listen to.

[@thirstfast1025]

5:00 a simpler example would be how faucets use red for hot and blue for cold.

[@sweetdurt2143]

Chuck is literally has the best job in the world

[@rhov-anion]

In elementary school, I wrote a fantasy story about a dragon that breathed blue flames. My teacher said it should be red since it's supposed to be super hot, but even as a child I knew BLUE was the hottest flame.

[@hullinstruments]

IM BUSY TODAY & CANT BE ON KZbin….. Five minutes later… “I’ve always got time for the social construct known as the electromagnetic spectrum….. and these two hilarious nerds” Edit… I love both you guys so much! But it would be comedy gold if Neil muted Chuck’s microphone for the entire show… and didn’t tell him. And then make up questions… And act like it was something Chuck asked 😂 … Just guide the conversation into some ridiculous direction! wherever you want it to go… And watch Chuck have a meltdown. That would be fun to watch. y’all are both hilarious and get so animated! You always keep me company in my quiet lab. Thanks for these videos

[@taliachetty5417]

Love love love!!!..neil and chuck work the best with each other😁😁😁

[@MrKasa1989]

Yay, New episode while I'm cooking

[@Bad_Wolf_Media]

12:24 - As a photographer that would very much like the opportunity to cover one of Dr. Tyson's events, I can NOT co-sign Chuck's suggestion!

[@Josh-om1lo]

I love watching these videos with my son.

[@littlechineseladyv2517]

yay you released a video on my birthday