Random facts you have only recently discovered

[fandabbyfannyflutters]

I found out only yesterday you are not allowed to take photos of the Eiffel Tower at night...mind totally blown

Those wavelengths are not the same thing as "colour". Nothing in the world actually has a colour because colour is entirely created by the brain of the perceiver.

As a scientist (who writes software where we define colours in proportions of RGB) I was considering wavelengths of light not 'qualia'. You can detect colour objectively with a spectrophotometer.

It might be valid to say nothing 'is green' in the sense that some people can't distinguish green; I don't think the reverse which is what was claimed upthread 'everything is green' has any validity.

There is a tea plantation in England.

And in Scotland too!

The tin foil one- use the shiny sign to reflect heat, ie lining a baking tray, wrapping sandwiches and the dull side to absorb heat, ie wrapping fish/corn on the cobs for cooking.

Tried the car window one and it didn’t work. Waiting for DH to return with the other car to try it out.

As a scientist (who writes software where we define colours in proportions of RGB) I was considering wavelengths of light not 'qualia'. You can detect colour objectively with a spectrophotometer.

I'm also a scientist and I'm talking about psychological phenomena, not philosophical ones like qualia.

Yes wavelengths can be detected objectively and can be categorised as "red" "blue" or "green", however those categories are themselves based on subjective judgements and are not universal.

As I already mentioned, "blue" used to not exist - and this is still true for some Amazonian tribes - there have been some fascinating experiments showing that they cannot perceive blue, however they can perceive many different shades of green that westerners cannot. They would perceive your software very differently!

use the shiny sign to reflect heat, ie lining a baking tray, wrapping sandwiches and the dull side to absorb heat

honestly, it makes arse all difference.

there have been some fascinating experiments showing that they cannot perceive blue, however they can perceive many different shades of green that westerners cannot.

That's not quite right. I think you're referencing studies done with the Himba tribe. They're Nigerian, not Amazonian.

They do perceive the colour blue, but the word used for it doesn't really distinguish between green and blue. Members of the Himba tribe are therefore less adept at distinguishing between blue and green. But they are better than Europeans at distinguishing between some shades of green.

The language you use can and does alter the way in which you interact with the world, but it's not the case that the Himbas, for instance, literally can't perceive blue.

@ErrolTheDragon you're kind of clever scares all colours of shit out of me

@your*

I've recently learnt on this thread I'm thick as fuck

The Himba are in Namibia not Nigeria

Loads of languages differentiate betweeen colours differently. IIRC Welsh does the green / blue thing too.

You dont have to go over the severn bridge to get to Wales, but many people do. Wales very much shares a border with England.

no. It can’t be true that some people think there’s only one way in and out of Wales

Although my friend (from England) did bring her passport to get into north wales from Cheshire so maybe it is believable.

Mine: Koalas, wombats and Tasmanian devils have 3 vaginas. Each. Not between them.

Tiredandhungry - I'm fairly old and good at both googling and procrastinating, that helps in acquiring random bits of knowledge.

The Wales/Severn bridge poster perhaps needs to discover the existence of that wondrous pre-SatNav technology 'the map'.

@MoederVanEen Also there is good evidence to suggest that our ancestors could not perceive blue - they described the sky as gold or brown! That's so interesting - do you have any further reading I could do on this? I had a quick Google but the keywords are too generic and I just got lots of results about Sky sports and gold medals!

I find it somewhat unlikely that if the ancients couldn't perceive blue they'd have valued lapis lazuli or bothered importing indigo.

This is a slightly clickbaity website but gives a quick summary of the “how did the ancient Greeks experience colour?” debate.
www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2?r=US&IR=T

I thought the Greeks and the colour debate came about from the Homer "wine-dark sea" translation? And that Greeks just had a different way of describing colours that don't translate to English?

The fastest sending off in football was after 2 seconds.
The ref blew the whistle to start the game.
A player with his back to the ref shouted “fuck me that was loud.” And was sent off for using foul language.

The colour thing reminds me of the blue and black of white and gold argument

@WeshMaGueule you're right, sorry!

For those interested in colour perception /linguistics - there's a chapter in Guy Deutscher, Through the Language Mirror which covers this, though you probably want the bibliography for the original articles.

Through the Language Glass, that should say. Knew I should have double- checked before posting...