The color yellow is in actuality a retinal processing error of colors that our rod receptors cannot distinguish.

Is there any web article that confirms this or anywhere at that? I cannot seem to find the proof here.

if that is true there is another color out there. Who could have discovered this because whenever they went to look at the results they would show up yellow not some illusion of the eye .I believe this is false although I could be wrong
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Aren't all colors (other than white and black) just different wavelengths entering the retina? I am only in 9th grade, so I probably don't know as much about this as slayton, but what I've been taught so far has been that colors are different wavelengths entering the eye. Black is lack of waves and white is... something... all of them. I did an experiment once on white. If you shine all three primary colors (blue,yellow, and red) onto one spot, it appears white.

Actualy black is all the wavelengths and white is a lack of them. The darker the color the more wavelengths, but yes yellow is a processing error because no combination of wavelengths could actually form the color yellow. Although it is true that there is in fact one non discovered color that our eyes misinterpret as yellow, it is insignificant because our eyes will never be able to see that color.

no

nowhere man - you're incorrect.

"Black" reflects the fewest wavelengths, while "White" reflects the most. It's one of the reasons black objects get hotter than white objects in the sun.

You're confusing additive colour theory (paint), with subtractive colour theory (light).

Homme, you're half right.

White is all wavelengths, black is zero wavelengths. However, paint/printing is referred to as "subtractive color theory", while emitted light is "additive".

You see a certain colour of paint or ink because it only reflects that wavelength of light, absorbing (or "subtracting") all the other wavelengths.

You see a certain colour on your monitor because your monitor "adds" the relevant amounts of RGB to create that overall colour.

does anyone know how gendale fits into all of this?

af1733,

Something that is black is absorbing all the colors, and reflects none. That is why it appears black: no (visible) wavelengths. That is also why black items are hotter in direct sunlight: they are absorbing all the radiation. Your theory was spot-on until you tried to discuss black.

Ok...White light contains all the colours within the spectral range of light. That is if you wish to have a blue light emanating from a white light source, you can filter out the frequencies that produce the other colours and you will be left with a blue light. This process has been used in virtually every conventional theatrical lantern for the last 150 years. The power of the light will be reduced by the process, in the case of a Sky Blue, by around 10% but in the case of a very very deep blue you can lose around 75% of the original light source power. The current trend in lanterns a the moment, is to use 3 coloured LEDs to produce the different colours, however this process is in its infancy for theatrical purposes as the throw of the light is quite weak. Though in arcitectural uses this process is gaining momentum.

In paint it is the reverse of that process, ie black absorbs all frequencies and white reflects them. And a colour can be given a wavelength attribute based where in the wavelength spectrum the reflection AND abosorbtion occur.

All the above means that correctly speaking neither black nor white are colours as they do not both reflect AND absorb. Black is merely the absence of all light, and I doubt that many people have truely seen that.

The below link is to a website who provide filters for Lanterns and the wavelengths and balances for different colours can be seen there, and yes yellow exists and it not a retinal error, it is there within the spectrum using the correct balance of wavelengths.
http://www.leefilters.com/LPFD.asp?PageID=290

I understand what you are saying, yet, if we all percieve this colour that we call yellow in the same way, and it exists within the colour spectrum available to us from white light, then it is by definition a colour called yellow. Who is to say that we perceive colours correctly, it can not be an error if it exists within the colour spectrum, it is really there and that is how we see it, for example for you indigo does not exist, you have no concept of it, so for you indigo is not in your available spectrum. But yellow is in mine. If I defract white light I see yellow clear as day, it is clearly yellow, it is what I understand yellow to be. If the whole world processed indigo like yourself then it wouldn't cease to exist we just would not have a name for it.

Nomeclatures are merely a human way of passing on understanding and if we all under and percieve yellow as a colour then by default it is. That doesnt mean that we are right, but that is how we percieve it and it makes sense that if there is a common perception then it is given a name so that we can pass it on.

I only know that blue is thue called because I was taught it by someone once, and I elected to use that tag myself, because if I decided to call it anything else it would lead to more confusion. There is very clearerly a colour within the spectrum at the wavelengths that yellow occupies and whether or not we perceive it correctly or not it is a common perception shared by most if not all the world. Accordingly we call that colour yellow, wether we percieve it correctly or not. We perceive and understand it as our mind want us to. This colour will always be called Yellow, If we evolve and percieve it in a different way then a new name will be allocated to the colour.

pure black having no light reflected off it is invissible to the human eye what we see as black is no more than a unknown area witch our brain processes into the colour we see.

HA

Exactly. If I am taught from birth that a dog is a "fish", for example, that doesn't make it any less a canoid mammal. That just means that my perception, or knowledge processing, if you will, is flawed in some way - in this case intentionally by whomever taught me that a being with four legs, a tail and that barks is called a "fish". The dog itself doesn't change, but my understanding of it would. If we were ever to be able to perceive what we know as "yellow" without the accompanying retinal processing error, we might at first believe it to be a new color, perhaps even the elusive "gendale" discovered by Timothy Leary, but given time and experimentation, we would find it to occupy the spot on the spectrum that we know as "yellow" and adjust our perceptions accordingly.

No, a brain reaction to the information coming from the rod cells creates a "color" response that should not be there. For instance, when you are in a dark room, with nothing but a red light, will see things as black, white, grey, red or orange. You should not see the orange, but there it is.

Maybe there are people in the world who see yellow for what it really is but since they are taught that it is yellow they don't know that others see it as something different.

Whoa... Because maybe the words we use to describe them are different, which is how we distinguish any color from another (light vs. dark). Wait a minute... Maybe the words light and dark actually mean different things to different people. Maybe the scientists are all wrong and each person has their own individual set of colors! What an interesting concept!

Good point.

Posted By: nyarfdude

Whoa... Because maybe the words we use to describe them are different, which is how we distinguish any color from another (light vs. dark). Wait a minute... Maybe the words light and dark actually mean different things to different people. Maybe the scientists are all wrong and each person has their own individual set of colors! What an interesting concept!

That's sort of the concept I was implying, forgot the names for the colours, I was implying where I see yellow, you might see what I would call green. And where I see green, you would see yellow, If that was the case, how would we ever know?

basically, there is variation within us all which makes us all different and this would include sight. also, people's site could change for other reasons (like having your eye poked out by a small stick)

Just so you all can rest at night, two of the smartest technicians at my work are searching the internet far and wide for information on Gendale. I told them about the Popular Science article.