The Color White Does NOT Exist

[@322stevo]

Art teacher here. I've tried to explain this to kids with great difficulty before. Now all I have to do is show them this video.

[@andresvillarreal9271]

No, no, no! Explain to them that there are different colors and different experiences with colors, not that a red apple is actually not red and does not even have a color, and that white is not a color. Teach them some good science about light, enough to make the work of a visual artist easier.

[@AlleyKatt]

Can't quickly think of an example, but I've seen work of very creative artists that use this knowledge of colours, and we see it in a certain way until it is pointed out what they did.

[@andresvillarreal9271]

@@AlleyKatt Every artist, at least since the renaissance, has known about primary and secondary colors even if they did not know about the light sensors in our eyes. I am pretty sure that no artist has ever thought "white is not a color, the red apple in fact has no color either, I will use this in my painting". I would like to play with holograms and lasers to make images that different people see differently, but I would still be using objects that have a property called "color", and I would still be using combinations of different wavelengths that are, by definition and by physics and by anatomy, a color. There is a lot of physics and biology and optics that you can learn, much more than what was presented poorly here, and it can be used by artists and scientists in several ways, but just redefining words is not the way.

[@k1ry4n]

@@andresvillarreal9271 So we should NOT tell kids the reality of physics and biology? In which way this knowledge will prevent them from being good visual artists? I honestly don't understand your reasoning...

[@oculusnomadslosttribe5672]

@k1ry4n... I’m in agreement with you..it’s not bunk science..

[@ScienceAsylum]

FYI: The audio from 4:15 to 4:30 is intentional. You never know when my mind vortex will appear. We were overdue, I think. That being said, I do glaze over a lot of biology there and, no matter how disappointed you think you are about it, my (biologist) wife is _more_ disappointed. She's happy to have your support though 👍 EDIT: If you want more details about the biochem, Steve Mould did a whole video about it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqfSp6eYgayUi9k

[@samarwahid7313]

HOW WHITE LED SHOW WHITE COLOR ????

[@Robert-dB]

@@samarwahid7313 There are tri-colour leds, usually with each of the monochromatic RGB individually controllable, but the normal method is to take an ultraviolet emitting LED and put a mixed "phosphor" on top that converts the light to a wide band of red to blue.

[@blueckaym]

Then perhaps your wife can make a 2nd episode on the subject you so graciously glazed over? ;)

[@dredrotten]

@John Doe) Watch the video again and you will find he said that. Now pay attention, Johnny!

[@nadeemshaikh7863]

Does any color really exist in reality?

[@shinluis]

As a painter/digital artist this video is pure gold. We see and think about this sort of stuff all the time and still STILL I hadn't connected the dots for how the brain just makes extra "colours/detection labels' for stuff like magenta and white. That was awesome!!

[@ScienceAsylum]

I know interior designers have to consider lighting too when choosing colors for a room. It's an important thing to know!

[@mihailmilev9909]

@@ScienceAsylum indeed I'm sure it is

[@mihailmilev9909]

Speaking of colors u have some very nice art as ur profile picture

[@mihailmilev9909]

And how have the last 3 years been lol

[@electricearth1101]

so white people are actually light people.

[@laurel5432]

Man, I knew all of this, and yet presented by you it just blows my mind anyway.

[@paramountx]

LMAO I thought my phone was messing up when the voices started layering up

[@chiefdvm1671]

Me too

[@paramountx]

@@chiefdvm1671 hahaha. I had my Bluetooth on and not looking at the screen. LMAO

[@chiefdvm1671]

Lol

[@Adraria8]

I thought I was having an LSD flashback

[@fangugel3812]

paramountx Me too!!

[@SiddharthSingh-hx1bp]

Marvelous video, Nick! So ingenious of you to include that "getting dizzy" effect..😅 Also, the puns were spot on. Great work man. Keep it up🥳

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thank you! (for the support and the encouragement)

[@redsalmon9966]

6:18 Reminds me of by Vsauce

[@crazyland7507]

Yeah

[@TheBytegeist]

And that title is equally clickbaity and wrong. Color is by definition a perception, *not* a physical property of light. His statement at 2:37 is only half true: technically, neither objects *nor* light have color. Even Sir Isaac Newton already knew this and wrote "Indeed rays [of light], properly expressed, are not coloured. In them there is nothing else than a certain power or disposition to stir up a sensation of this or that colour." On the physical side, you have reflection or emission spectra, but not color. Colors are a perception, and therefore are subjective and depend on context. Meaning that physically identical spectra can be perceived as different colors. There are many optical "illusions" that demonstrate this, such as the checker shadow illusion, or that infamous black/blue white/gold dress. And conversely, different physical spectra can be perceived as the same color. Yellow is a simple example for that (spectral i.e. single wavelength yellow vs. yellow made from red + green - physically different, but perceptually identical, and therefore the same color).

[@discy12345]

Yeah! Great summary indeed!

[@gwarscout1825]

@@TheBytegeist ...BORING 💩

[@alamrasyidi4097]

@@TheBytegeist I think he went with another definition not from that sense but as in the spectrum of visible light. Either way, it's not worth debating as it is an equivocation fallacy, and yes, the title is clickbaity in a way.

[@dragoscoco2173]

Question: What color is your cat? Answer: It has no color. The best way to end a discussion.

[@ilove2dirpuwu907]

I don't have a cat

[@TheDarshKnight]

This channel is among my most favorite-est ones. I'm glad this exists. edit: ...as far as I can tell, anyway.

[@m_i_g_5108]

Lol

[@ryanofottawa]

My man, I recently got interested in painting which led me to be interested in colour mixing which led me to wondering what's going on with light, and you have proved to be an excellent resource in this rabbit hole. Your whole series on Optics and Light has been incredibly valuable to my understanding. You are a fantastic educator and I cannot thank you enough for what you do.

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks. That's always nice to hear.

[@electricearth1101]

so white people are actually light people.

[@vedangratnaparkhi]

Lets take a moment to appreciate the art skills of Nick.

[@MsSonali1980]

When you have watched too many physics videos and read momentum instead of moment, you know the time has come...

[@zoro.73]

@@MsSonali1980 😂😂

[@fernanda_plays]

A computer's "16,777,216" RGB colors is not over the 10 million variants we can see because the 10 million colors we can see are not equally distributed among hue, saturation and brightness. This fact is used extensively in video and image compression algorithms, since it is well known that our color perception is not a 1-256 RGB range. In fact, 16,777,216 is completely excessive when it comes to hue, but falls short by several orders of magnitude when it comes to brightness. This is why in hospital monitors and when dealing with greyscale x-ray images they use 10-bit or even in some cases 12-bit monitors. Or why in games, "blue noise" (not literally blue, just the name) is used to this day to dither between dark colors so you can't see the transition between them, an effect called banding. 256 gradients from black to white do not correspond to how our eyes see color, especially given that they are adaptive to the amount of incoming light and will compress or expand that range so we don't go blind when excessive light enters. The conservative amount of steps we need for a ~200 candelas per square meter monitor is between 2048 and 4096 depending on vision quality, so for maximum clarity 12-bits is needed (68 billion colors), but 10-bits (1b colors) is usually sufficient to cover our 10 million color coverage when it comes to brightness. As for hue and saturation... When you say "we already can't see most of the colors displayed, any additional colors to you are a complete waste of your money" is a profoundly wrong statement about how color space works. Regular monitors exist in a tiny space of our visible spectrum called sRGB, a color space created by HP and Microsoft that only covers a very, very small space of the color spectrum. Other color spaces, such as AdobeRGB, color significantly more of the gamut we can see, and if you see the same RGB 255,0,0 in a 100% sRGB and a 100% AdobeRGB monitors in comparison, the former will look almost greyish in comparison with the later, and AdobeRGB only covers ~50% of the agreed upon visible color range. Nowadays, the HDR10+ standard that some of you might see when buying a television requires that television to show a visible light gamut vastly bigger than AdobeRGB, called ITU-R BT.2020. A quick google image search for sRGB, AdobeRGB and ITU-R BT.2020 should show you their coverages in an intuitive way. And by the way, modern cellphones, especially high-end ones rarely adhere to any standard at all, instead extending over the sRGB gamut to look more vibrant and impressive, but arbitrarily. You might experiment seeing a full red, orange or green side by side with your cellphone against your computer screen. If they show exactly the same, both are sRGB calibrated, but odds are your cellphone might be more vibrant. Peace and God bless.

[@philipberthiaume2314]

Here I am just minding my own and enjoying an amazing video by the science asylum when all of a sudden I see Nick lucid in a white T-shirt in a shower. 😲🤨😀😂😂🤣🤣 LMAO !!!

[@dumpsky]

didn't you learn anything? white t-shirts do not exist!

[@Allomerus]

That image threw me for a while...

[@GREGGRCO]

Lolololololol

[@GREGGRCO]

@@wheeliekidbp NO ! LOLOLOLOLOLOL !!

[@thromboid]

No you didn't - it was just a clone. :)

[@aaravkansal4087]

Thanks for answering my previous questions We see a leaf green in sunlight because it reflects green light but absorbs all other(like red) If we keep the same leaf in red or blue light,we should see it black as it must absorb all the red light but instead we see the leaf in red or blue color Why?

[@aaravkansal4087]

Pls reply

[@user-df7oo4hr8h]

I always look forward to seeing notifications from your channel.

[@matthewsinglehurst7873]

Try looking backwards ...

[@Orenotter]

Just because it's all in your head doesn't mean it isn't real. Don't confuse wavelengths of light with color. As you said, there is no color in the physical world. Color is simply how our brains interpret light. By the way, the human red cone has a small spike in sensitivity in the blue range, which allows up to see purple, if not magenta, light.

[@The_Silver_Lurker]

I was waiting for this comment. Theres a difference between wavelengths of visible light and the pigments used to recreate or trigger them.

[@reinada7640]

1:25 : *_Okay, I suppose I could e-LAB-orate._*

[@adama7752]

Call this man a Doctor, He's sick!

[@dumpsky]

amazing info!

[@AlleyKatt]

@@adama7752 Which man am I calling a doctor?

[@marcushendriksen8415]

"Ever going to look at color the same way again?" Nice try, but how can I look at something that doesn't exist?

[@ScienceAsylum]

Good answer.

[@dactylntrochee]

Thanks, Nick. You've refined a misconception I've maintained for 60 years. (And I understood it all, too. You're usually a little advanced for me.)

[@martiddy]

Really?, he usually dumbs down the difficult topics (but without misconceptions), so people can understand it better.

[@dactylntrochee]

@@martiddy Well, he might, but that doesn't mean he can penetrate my region of the dumb-to-bright spectrum. It's pretty dense down here.

[@szecr]

"What's your favorite color?" "White" "Oh that doesn't exist" "Wtf"

[@KaptenKetchup]

6:19 Hey Vsauce, Michael here!

[@chuckbucketts]

Today I learned that magenta isn't a spectral color. All this time, I thought it was a spectral color with a hue angle of 300°. I learn something new every time I watch this channel. Thanks, Nick!

[@awfuldynne]

I think I heard that the red cones have a second response peak at wavelengths shorter than the blue cones' peak (they fire at "violet", but not at the longer wavelengths of indigo blue), which is why the spectrum looks like it maps onto a color wheel despite not looping. And as Nick described, an RGB display has three colored lights in each pixel so those mostly aren't spectral colors, either.

[@mihailmilev9909]

@@awfuldynne huh....

[@mihailmilev9909]

@@awfuldynne I always wondered why the color wheel loops

[@deltabeta5527]

3:36 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I almost died laughing. You rock nick 👍

[@deenewyork1962]

Well don't die watching funny moments , how would it feel when you're laughing hard and suddenly you die 😂

[@DingXiaoke]

Sexy nipples

[@MsSonali1980]

I was laughing about the "mixed signals" and that he fell asleep during the biology monologue... :D

[@mumtaz5239]

Crazy home experiment! Just drop a little droplet of water on a white screen. It will behave like a lens and you will be able to see that RGB structure. You can also try it with magenta(5:49), yellow(6:18) or any color you want!

[@TheDarkBrutal]

Literally just talked color and light with my physics class. Students were in awe in learning the sun is white. I must show them this video!! Thank you.

[@danielpetka446]

7:00 yeah but it still can't produce all the colours, since the colours lose their saturation when mixed. No display can be as vibrant as monochromatic light.

[@ScienceAsylum]

Good point.

[@iamamcnea]

I would say wavelength is a property of light. Color is an emergent property of consciousness. Although color does correlate with wavelength often, that's not a requirement. From that standpoint the color white or magenta is just as valid as the color red.

[@tom_something]

That seems fair. Dark red and bright red are just different preceived magnitudes of the same wavelength, identified as distinct colors from one another. And pale yellow is what happens when our eyes get the same recipe as plain yellow, with a little bit of blue in the mix. Of course, if we strip value (or brightness) and saturation out of the mix, we're left with just hues. Which almost correspond to wavelengths, except for that dastardly magenta. So then, can we say that since color is not a property of light, objects _can_ have color? I guess we still have to say that they can't, since, as demonstrated in the video, the color of an object is perceived differently depending on the light that it is exposed to. And that goes outside of the visible spectrum, even. Something that appears to be mostly white in visible light may emit bright blue light when exposed to ultraviolet light. Is it blue when that is happening? Is it sill blue if we're not looking at it? So yeah, I guess color is not a property of matter or of light. Colors are purely the product of perception. Or.... frame of reference?

[@iamamcnea]

@@tom_something Yep, I would say color is purely perception. For instance people will tend to see flashes of colors in a sensory deprivation tank, or on hallucinogenic drugs. There need not be matter nor light in order to perceive color (although these cases are the outliers to our day to day experiences).

[@tom_something]

@@iamamcnea There's a sort of color theory whereby the input from our three cone types then goes through an intermediate processing step. In this step, there's sort of an x-y plot. One axis goes from blue to yellow. The other axis, some say it goes from green to red, others say it goes from green to magenta. And the midpoint on each scale is basically an absence of color. So there's not really a way for us to perceive bluish yellow or greenish red. They're not colors, simply because our brains decided not to make them into colors. It could have been a blue-to-green scale and a red-to-yellow scale instead, but it isn't. We just... didn't do that.

[@PawelJimmi]

4:44 Have we discovered that there are only these three receptors in our eyes before we created pixels on the screens?

[@jakekp4739]

This was so perfect mix of biology and physics! I love it!

[@drupadkatoch4467]

Your red phone becoming black under the green light was a eureka moment about how colours work....

[@ScienceAsylum]

Glad I could help 🤓

[@KrayloAdaraan]

3:36 lmao! Things you just can't unsee

[@jeffo9396]

Well, I'd rather see a wet t-shirt on nick than a wet t-shirt on Rosie O'Donnell.

[@rustycherkas8229]

Well chosen T-shirt! There's "Pink" (obviously), the album title including "Dark", and a song title on the album, "Any Colour You Like".

[@kbbeats3099]

Nick, thank you so much for the examples. It makes complex subjects like this a breeze for the layman. I fully support your work.

[@--Za]

One reason why I love your videos is because every time a question appears in my mind, you answer it a few seconds later.

[@nachannachle2706]

Brilliant video. You covered: the light spectrum (Physics), the human brain (Biology), the RGB distribution (Computer Science) and the LCD screen design (Engineering aka Applied physics). And that shower scene...LOL!

[@SaharaSmith-h2n]

"We need a source of light, then we need the thing we're trying to see, and then our eyeballs, and then our brains." You just described what we call the "color triangle" at the color science lab I study at. I was thrilled to see it here! I also love how you touch on the idea that objects are not actually colored. Actually, this video is a really great introduction to color science, in general, with a couple of important exceptions. First, color is a perception in the brain, not a physical property, which means that your screen DOES show yellow, it just isn't the same combination of light that you would receive from, say, a lemon. This concept is known as "metamerism", if you (or anyone else reading this) are interested in learning more. This is also why any arguments saying "____ is not a color" don't actually make sense. All colors exist only in the mind. Second, adding primaries is less about increasing the NUMBER of colors available, and more about increasing the RANGE. Despite popular belief, it is not actually possible to recreate all of the visible colors using only three primaries, and the more primaries that you add, the larger the range of colors that you can see is. Personally, I'm all in favor of adding more primaries to screens. Really loved this video!❤ I've taken to watching videos on your channel to understand more about optics and have found it to be an incredible resource.

[@bobm4378]

"your screen DOES show yellow" ?? NOPE! on most TV screens, yellow does NOT exist!! (search that!) - get a good magnifier, you will see red and green pixels that the brain decodes to yellow..

[@potawatomi100]

As before - excellent video. Very well researched and excellent delivery. Can you explain why the spokes of a wheel, as the car moves forward, move in the direction of the car. But, as the car picks-up speed the spokes give a visual image that they reverse direction? Thank you in advance.

[@Robert-dB]

Because you spend too much time on KZbin ?

[@ScienceAsylum]

Sounds like a good video topic.

[@Robert-dB]

Actually, I take that back. Add in some contrasts between rolling shutter effects and gate effects, with a spice of interlacing and it could be good.

[@ScienceAsylum]

@@Robert-dB Captain Disillusion has been making some quick videos recently on tech stuff like that. kzbin.info

[@WarrenGarabrandt]

So, this video is discussing the difference between spectral color (a color that monochromatic light looks like), vs non-spectral colors. There are MANY more non-spectral colors that you see than purely spectral ones because the vast majority of objects do not simply reflect a single wavelength of light. Most (all?) objects reflect more than one wavelength, or reflect a range of wavelength, or there will be enough diffuse light that gets scattered that you perceive it as reflecting that wavelength. Things that appear "Metallic" such as gold and silver, are pretty much impossible for a computer screen to render because they are not made up of any combination of wavelengths by themselves. Since the objects reflect light in different ways depending on the angle of the light, you get a great deal of variation of color over the object, and it takes a very sophisticated simulation to accurately simulate this. Just look at diagram of spectral colors and see how limited that is. Now, imagine every shade of grey from white to black. You can mix different spectral colors and shades of grey into millions and millions of combinations and derive WAY more combinations of color than spectral light. For example, 50% blue and 50% red gives a purple looking color. 100% blue and 100% red gives magenta (a very saturated color). You can get pink by mixing a reddish color with white. and brown by mixing an orange color with black or dark grey. Oversaturated colors, such as something seeming whiter than white, are possible too, that your monitor has no ability to produce at all. Speaking of impossible colors your monitor can't product: you can mix red and greed, or blue and yellow, in ways that give the appearance of a brand new color, but you get a muddy color not even close to them by using your monitor or even paints.

[@geethaudupa8930]

* Clicked on video * * Liked it * * Watched it * * Loved it so much * * I 're'liked the video *

[@jebediahkerman8245]

Staring at a bright color will temporarily desensitize the cones associated with that color. Stare at a magenta screen for a while and then change it to green. The green light will no longer activate the red and blue cones as much as it normally would, so you will be looking at a super green color that you don’t normally ever see.

[@bseduarda]

You made it possible for me to be happy to have a class! The happiness I get when seeing a new video is up amazes me every time! Bless you man!

[@deenewyork1962]

I am curious why "there's always a little reflection" ( 3:06 ) and why "transparent materials aren't perfect" ? I understood from your video on "Why are some things transparent" that how light gets refracted , but how "reflection" happens is not still clear...

[@ScienceAsylum]

Right, things are transparent because they don't _absorb_ visible light. However, refraction and reflection almost always happen at the same time. It takes a very special set of circumstances to only get one or only get the other.

[@deenewyork1962]

@@ScienceAsylum The atomic level reason of "reflection" and why it's reflected only in a certain direction ? ...Is not clear to me . Whereas the case of refraction is clearly understandable from your video on "Why are some things transparent"

[@ScienceAsylum]

I have a really old video that might help: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o6fCamOGeJqLgdk but I should really come back to it and do a better job.

[@deenewyork1962]

@@ScienceAsylum Please confirm , Reflected light = those photons which didn't got cancelled by interference inside the transparent substance , they're just scattered backward instead of forward , this is purely determined by how the atoms are organised . Correct ?

[@ScienceAsylum]

Correct.

[@laddysingh5970]

3:35 You just earned a like.

[@markzockerzwerg8997]

That is why in former times blue colour was added to white fabrics to remove a yellow or grey cast. Nowadays optical brighteners are used in laundry detergents, which absorb UV light and emit blue light.

[@alias40anon]

Science is so great, but you Nick are also very good talking about it, and this is a thankfull combination

[@bykurt_is]

What’s crazy is he answered my question but I can’t stop watching. Bruh keeps it concise for everyone to understand.

[@irlserver42]

Color is purely psychological - neither light nor objects have color, any more than certain vibrations 'actually sound like' anything - its all between the ears Nick.

[@marxk4rl]

Search on Google the definition of "color", looks like you don't know what exactly is "color".

[@irlserver42]

@@marxk4rl Neither search engines nor dictionaries are academic sources. Try again Karl.

[@TheBytegeist]

@@marxk4rl What do YOU think the definition of "color" is? I'm with IRL Server. Color isn't a physical property of light, it's a subjective perception.

[@milanjana3614]

An actor , a teacher , an idol and a friend who entertains u in his each word

[@Qrzychu92]

Great video as always :) This would also be a nice place to explain how color blindness works and how the color blind curing glasses work :) All it takes is few changes on the cones sensitivity graph :)

[@SiriusGraves]

This is great! I´ve been trying to do the same thing with wind. "Don´t think its windy and you are cold. Think there is a pressure difference and your body is losing heat faster" Its less romantic, but i experience less cold that way

[@BlueRaja]

One thing your LCD explanation missed: because each of the three primary colors actually stimulate all three cones (especially green), some combinations of "signals sent to the brain" are not possible to reproduce using an RGB LCD (the commonly cited one is "deep orange"). If you look at a chromaticity diagram, the colors reproducible using RGB are actually less than half the entire chart. This is different from your "this is not actually yellow" because the actual and reproduced color are distinguishable, unlike "pure" vs. "red+green" yellow (this last fact is actually used in a color-blindness test called an "anomaloscope")

[@juanausensi499]

That's intriguing. Can you name some object that is 'deep orange' so i can make a photo of it and see the results in a LCD screen?

[@pavoladam4457]

I am a bit late to the party... but You are true. Nick completely omitted "color gamut", even if it is a simple thing to explain - how our brain interprets the impulses from our eyes. With it it would be even more obvious that RGB cannot display "all colors" and that adding more colors isn't "a total and complete waste of your money". Heck, it is even clear from his speaking in the lines of "these three neural impulses are enough" (ignoring rod cells and its - albeit little - contribution to color perception), but clearly showing that e. g. "green" color in LCD screen fires the "red" cone also (and vice versa). Thus we cannot get many "rainbow" colors from RGB screen only. Yeah, even white can be a combination of e. g. blue and "clean" yellow, that means only two colors. Nick could even speak about materials not only reflecting a particular frequency (e. g. "it is yellow because yellow light gets reflected - its reflected light's frequency peaks at yellow"), but a combination thereof (e. g. "it can also be *perceived* yellow if its reflected light peaks at green and red frequency.." - or whatever color gamut is enabling). I've had two bed sheets at home. They looked "blue" the same way (under sunlight, under fluorescent bulb). Still, there was difference. I shone at them with two LED light sources from different manufacturers. One looked the same blue, the other "changed" color to violet. (But both light sources' light cones looked the same when reflected off a white wall.) You cannot explain that without speaking of frequency combinations and gamut.... I like Nicks videos very much, but I think, he tried to keep it simple... and omitted important facts :(.

[@kripashankarshukla4073]

Dictionaries are incomplete because there is no word in any dictionary which can describe your greatness! Spectacular!!thankssssss a lot!!!!!

[@bernzeppi]

Best explanation yet! I’ve been teaching this to amazed students fresh out of school, some of them fighting disbelief. Thanks for the upload, I’ll be playing it to them.

[@anshumanagrawal346]

Wdym "fighting disbelief"

[@DaellusKnights]

I know it's outside the scope of the video, but the color-mixing scale is a bit skewed (expanded, really) for people with tetrachromacy, like me. We basically have four light channels, not just the RGB. 🤔

[@JuergenNoll]

4:00 who else caught the typo?

[@chiefdvm1671]

Not me...

[@ScienceAsylum]

Me neither, apparently.

[@heynando]

@4:15 ahhahaha I laughed so hard my GF asked to see the video, she NEVER watches my videos

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks for appreciating it! (Most comments about it have been viewers disappointed they don't get to learn the bio.)

[@ehsan_ul_haq]

Useful stuff at 7:03 Awesome explanation.

[@ehsan_ul_haq]

Michael Murphy I feel like a stupid I don't know how to appreciate your work. It's awesome. I think that there should be a limit to the continuity of colour dimness maybe there is a defined amount-quantum of light which would be responsible for effective change in perception thus putting a limit to the number of maximum brightness levels per subpixel. This may be similar to the case of the frame rate limit in our eyes. Thank you a lot for forcing me to think about it.

[@ehsan_ul_haq]

@@Michael Murphy, I am a student and have recently qualified from high school and am looking for an undergraduate course in Computer science. Once again thanks for bringing such a fruitful conversation. Stay blessed Sir.

[@dpolaristar4634]

Now that I'm finally caught up, I have some future suggestions: Fine-Tuning Entanglement (And specifically why we CAN'T use it to break Relativity.) Some more pure information theory (As it's often relevant in physics) What are Tensors? What is Friction? A video on the Pauli Exclusion Principle. How do Lasers work(Related to the above.) Monopoles Some TOE candidate videos why their proponents favor them and why they are still in debate. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Also I know you mostly do physics videos, (Because that's your area of study) But if you do other types of science videos maybe have some guest that are experts help you at least with the script if not be the guest star.

[@ScienceAsylum]

I'll consider these :-)

[@JavierArveloCruzSantana]

I comment some times, but, Nick, you are--simply put--an inspiration. You were born to be a teacher. What I love about you (beyond the lessons) is your enthusiasm and your passion. I'll leave it at that after I say one more thing: I don't "see" anybody else in this production, but all those compliments go to you and all those who help you--particularly all those nice clones. ;)

[@KingDrekon]

Black is the complete absorption (presence) of light. White is the complete reflection (absence) of light.

[@thejohnstonzoo]

Finally, I actually understood what he was talking about... I'm just a simple man

[@LumenPlacidum]

BUT! The lights that make up the pixels on your LCD screen have to be chosen to emit particular wavelengths of light! This means that, aside from those three very particular locations on the visible light spectrum, your computer screen is TOTALLY INCAPABLE of displaying the other colors that are actually the only colors that physically exist. The subset of colors that is displayable by your LCD computer screen is called the "color gamut" of the screen. If you were to get a screen that has a fourth color of light built into it, then you WOULD actually be able to see additional colors that the screen could not display beforehand. It isn't a total and complete waste of your money. It's just a marginal gain. I teach a smattering of this to my Linear Algebra students in high school when we talk about vector spaces. Color gamuts are not vector spaces since it's impossible to generate two colors that will destructively interfere using a computer screen, though. But, there are some really interesting things happening in the science of what colors are perceptible coming from your screen.

[@blackscreennoiseforrelaxat1517]

Man thank you. I never knew how this works. Thanks a bunch.

[@nekad2000]

Taking it a step further, color is merely an articial interpretation of waves used by our brains to make sense if the world. Blue can refer to a wavelength, but we do not have color names for waves outside of our tiny visible frequency sliver, even though those other frequencies are no different.

[@encounteringjack5699]

Ever going to look at color the same? No, probably not. Interesting stuff.

[@jessiejemimah4309]

6:58 So would the rest of the 6,777,216 colors be made into a new color by the brain or would they not show up?

[@ScienceAsylum]

The screen will display them, but our eyes won't be able to tell them apart from "nearby" colors. Like if there are two different reds, we'll see them as the same red.

[@randomly_organized]

Why the title should always be ground breaking..? 😄😄

[@JustSome16]

It's not ground breaking, it's intentionally misleading.

[@ericklopes4046]

Because it is. Think about it. Your brain has to make up a bunch of stuff so you can interpret the world well enough to survive.

[@JustSome16]

"Color" is perception. Wavelength (not color!) is the property of the light. Color = mix of wavelenghts plus intensity. Saying "it does not exist" is misleading. That's a cheap trick. I don't like cheap tricks. "Color (American English), or colour (Commonwealth English), is the characteristic of human visual perception" (Wikipedia). So the characteristic of perception "does not exist"?! Sigh.

[@deenewyork1962]

@@JustSome16 Yes correct! Colour= mix of wavelengths plus intensity , *But* light and wavelength is a single thing! *And* Colour is the property of light/wavelength

[@JustSome16]

@@deenewyork1962 "Colour is the property of light/wavelength" is demonstrably wrong. Any practical color space has at least three dimensions. Wavelength has one. Clearly not the same thing. Wavelength is universal, color is subjective. Cats don't see the same colors. You see colors when hit by a heavy object. You don't see low intensity light as colors. You don't see high intensity light as colors either. There is more to the color than just wave length.

[@RahimRahmat]

I so really need to show this to my students, who are studying the topic of light. Thanks a million, Mr. Nick Lucid!

[@massimilianoc2436]

Probably I know well enough this topic... but explained by Nick is always worthy!

[@ZygiBoos]

The most interesting thing in all of this is that colors generally do not exist at all. Things do not have colors, only (to put it simple) smaller or larger grooves, absorbing some of the electromagnetic radiation, and some reflect depending on the wavelength. Brain, on the basis of these reflected radio waves, invented colors and put them on places where the radiation is so and not the other, that everything would not be gray. Nice troll :)

[@sjenkins1057]

While certainly very small grooves on the order of size similar to the wavelength of the light in question can separate out the colors (so called diffraction grates, often seen as the rainbow effect on DVDs), most colors on every day objects are as result of which wavelengths the individual molecules in the object absorb, and which they reflect, which is in turn determined by the available energy level transitions of the electrons in the molecule.

[@froop2393]

ok... what i've learned today: even when its dark and there is no light i can see the letters "subscribe" 😎

[@mr.noname6109]

It's because SUBSCRIBE emits RED light.

[@thecozyintrovert]

Not me laying awake having an existential crisis over color.

[@kiantamar]

Correction: *Color does not exist.* It's just how our brain interprets light.

[@IvanNOFX]

Close, but color does exist. Like you said, color is what we call our interpretation of light. It would be more accurate to say that the white light doesn't exist.

[@davidgumazon]

Objects have color we should call it "Visible"

[@jeffborders5526]

The single layer of clear plastic is still white, or close to white. You can see from your own example, the sheen of the glare of light reflected at certain layers render small sections of the crumpled plastic opaque due to refraction/reflection under just the right circumstances. Then you went on to describe the same thing but implied it requires folding it up many times. That just amplifies the effect.

[@ScienceAsylum]

You are correct. The white is always there, but most people won't _notice_ it unless I fold the plastic.

[@BronzeDragon133]

And for most of us with formal watercolor sets...it really doesn't exist. :-)

[@monicanagaraj1828]

I have one question if only a portion of the light emitted by an object reaches our eye then how we can able to see the entire object?

[@ScienceAsylum]

_Every_ point on the object emits light in _every_ available direction, so there is light coming to your eyes from every point on the object no matter where your eyes are.

[@harshshitole6293]

Yes that’s really informative,just not crazy as previous ones!

[@ronnyvbk]

Did you mis the shower scene?

[@eleneasy]

Very nice explanation of colors. Simple and effective.

[@grapy83]

This guy is so freaking amazing at explaining science stuff. Respect++

[@yuotwob3091]

respect to you for making sense all that guff

[@chrisbecke2793]

If colors are what we perceive, then magenta is a coluor, white is a color, and lcd screens produce the color yellow. It happens that there are many frequency combinations that might produce a colour, you can probably consider the set of colors you can reproduce using a single frequency of light, the set of colors you could produce with two frequencies, the set of colors with 3 and so on.

[@ujjal147]

I'm quite disappointed by my brain. But I'm glad at the same time. :D

[@kamleshrani34]

Hey Nick, why the molecular vibrational energy is not zero at absolute zero temperature, But molecular kinetic energy is zero at zero kelvin ?

[@ScienceAsylum]

It can't be exactly zero because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

[@seemarathore6120]

I have a question Why are you so underrated? Edit: By "underrated" i mean he has very less subs and views than he deserve.

i remember when he had 30k subs, imagine then

[@chiefdvm1671]

He is not. Because the ones who know about this channel is in love with Nick and The Science Asylum. So anyone who doesn't know this channel don't say about this channel(for obvious reasons). Therefore, if there would have been people who wouldn't enjoy that much of his content or hate him for his content(but channel quality is same), then this channel would be called underrated, as its content is good and but people who watch the channel doesn't really care about it. But this is not true. Each and everyone who watches this channel loves him and even posts lovely comments for Nick. Hence you didn't pick the right word for your comment....... If you read this comment, then please tell me if anywhere I am wrong.

[@seemarathore6120]

@@chiefdvm1671I totally agree with you. He makes great content and all his subscribers loves him. By "underrated" I meant he still only have 100k+ subs where other science channels have millions of subs. He makes as good content as any other good science youtuber(or even better) but gets very less attention than he deserve.

[@chiefdvm1671]

Actually very less people care about the wording in this content, so you didn't have to edit your comment😂😂. But I was just informing you that you had done a grammatical error. Otherwise no one cares about this. I have seen many people doing this....even if someone has english as there mother tongue. I don't have it as my mother tongue. No matter. Nice seeing someone accepting their mistake😊

@Ajay Singh Rathore , as for you, stop being such a spineless little bitch. just cause some random idiot on the internet says you're wrong, doesn't mean it's true.

[@RavenLuni]

Nice. I was obsessed with colour perception for a bit, from exploring the nature of brown (which is really orange with a higher blue component) and why it registers more prominently than other 'sub-spectra', to trying to simulate the dichromatic vision some animals have.

[@markotrieste]

Current video: white does not exist, objects don't have colors" Next video: "the Sun is always painted yellow but it's white instead" - with a thong-sunbathing clone.

[@shayanmoosavi9139]

Yes. Sun should actually look white :) The reason it looks yellow is because of Rayleigh scattering. Blue light scatters more and we see the sky as blue. Red and green are less scattered and reach our eyes when we look at the sun. What is red and green combined? Yellow of course. That's why sun looks yellow. P.S : the blue color of the sea and oceans is *not* the reflection of sky. It's an opposite effect. Other colors are absorbed more and the blue remains.

[@professorryze3739]

I heard that pink and purple light doesnt exist too. Is it true?

[@robertsevening7191]

This is my new favorite Science Asylum video. Informative, Interesting, Shocking AND Sexy!

[@ashwinianand2495]

Every new Science Asylum video that comes out, becomes my new favorite

[@awfuldynne]

At some point I speculated that "white" is whatever blend of light is most prevalent in your environment (or rather, your ancestral environment). For beings who live outside, that's going to be the parent star's spectrum, minus what the atmosphere absorbs. Vision probably won't be sensitive to wavelengths the atmosphere is opaque to, not including "holes" in the spectrum the atmosphere might leave.

[@FreeFireFull]

I disagree with the assertion that "colour" = "spectral colour".

[@TheBytegeist]

You're right, unlike the video. To quote Charles Poynton's Color FAQ: What is colour? - Colour is the *perceptual* *result* of light in the visible region of the spectrum, having wavelengths in the region of 400 nm to 700 nm, incident upon the retina. [...] spectral power distributions exist in the physical world, but colour exists only in the eye and the brain.

[@tazz250]

I reloaded the video 3 times because I thought the audio was messed up around 4:30

[@nrssiam692]

Bro why you don't have 1M?😢

[@cyrilio]

Your channel is growing so fast. Very much deserved!

[@Mathew7245]

Next video: Your imaginary girlfriend does not exist!

[@rayzorrayzor9000]

ok,ok, maybe my girlfriend could be "imaginary", but would that then mean that my jet black shoulder length hair and my chisell jaw with associated good looks are also "imaginary" , No, i cant believe that . . . looks in mirror . . . OH SH*T !!!!!!

[@pronounjow]

Just do a 90 degree rotation. She's on her own axis. You two added together make a complex relationship!

[@TheStringfellowHawk]

Like the square root of -100... she’s a 10, but imaginary

[@Mathew7245]

@@TheStringfellowHawk sqr of -100 is not 10

[@diskartengoragon9976]

I learned so many things from this channel. Thank you so much.

[@venkateshhmudaliar7770]

This is the video which literally proves : DON'T TRUST YOUR EYES

[@anilsahu2639]

man, you don't know how much sense you make with your clear understanding of the concepts and amazing presentation skills❤️

[@declanokeeffe5088]

“What if I told you the color white doesn’t exist” IT’S A SHADE. *video ends*

[@ncedwards1234]

I thought black was a shade and white was a tint.

[@NicleT]

That’s fun when you understand that a thing is precisely not the color your eyes see. The green leaves of a three is any color but green. Green is what is “rejected” by those leaves, they’re not green themselves. I love this!

[@IngloriousPirandello]

The shower clone have marked my mind. O_O

[@shayanmoosavi9139]

What is seen can't be unseen😂😂😂😂

[@roslynbayliss7059]

Dont worry it doesnt exist

[@mazenelgabalawy3966]

I would really like to thank the person who left a comment on some other science channel recommending your channel a long time ago. you sir have educated me well on hard topics. For that I can't thank you enough.

[@ScienceAsylum]

I'm glad you enjoy it :-)

[@anderstopansson]

If it was on MatrixWisdom BS channel , it may be me...