Because the ingredients that are used to produce different colors of paint have different weights, it’s actually possible for a seeing person whose eyes are closed — and who has a sensitive sense of touch — to tell colors apart according to their respective weights. Photo by Bill Westmoreland
SCIENCE & ART: CAN YOU REALLY TELL COLORS BY THEIR WEIGHTS?

WHAT IT TAKES TO WEIGH THE RAINBOW



brutjournal's science-and-art contributor David Bjerklie is a science writer and editor, and former science reporter for TIME magazine. He is based in New Jersey and Minnesota.



by David Bjerklie


There are so many ways to talk about color.

We can approach the characteristics and qualities of color from art-historical, aesthetic, or even psycho-emotional perspectives. In turn, each of these vantage points requires its own distinct vocabulary for discussing the subject. Color may also be considered in a more rarefied, technical realm, in which numerical scales are used to describe tint, tone, and shade, or hue, luminance, and saturation. Color can be measured with colorimeters and spectrophotometers and assigned chromaticity coordinates and spectral reflectance values.

Different colors of paint have different weights, depending on the weights of the pigments from which they are made. Photo by Bill Westmoreland
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