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What we know about colour: Recharge by Rachel Lopez
For spring, a compendium of facts and new research into the world of Vibgyor and beyond.
A century ago, pink was for boys and blue was for girls. In a June 1918 issue of the trade publication, Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department, one article is quite specific. “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls.” The reason? Pink, like red, was perceived as a bold, robust colour and better for little men. Blue, dainty, pure like the Virgin Mary, suited girls better. The associations switched only after World War 2.
Why is the sky blue? Science will tell you that as sunlight reaches the atmosphere, its wavelengths (that cause light to be perceived as colour) get jumbled up, and blue scatters into the air.
Is it really blue, though? Some scientists believe we see the sky as blue because we’re taught to, and that most colours are recognised only once we have names for them. Across cultures, native words for colours appear in stages — red, black and white almost always come first. Other colours emerge later, often as adjectives: ash-like, salmon-red, chocolatey. Blue, linguistic historians say, invariably gets named last — there just isn’t much blue in nature to require it. As for the sky (or sea), ancient texts don’t call it blue at all. There are references to green, grey and yellow.
Sanskrit descriptions are complex. Nil, shwet, harit, rakht mean more than blue, white, green and red. They’re words that denote the quality (varnn/varna) of an object - its colour, outward appearance, exterior, form, figure or shape.
The Chinese have a mystery hue. Ancient texts refer to it as qing. It seems to be a mix of green and blue, sometimes with a hint of black. Qing has been used to describe the sky, mountains, hair and eyes. Perhaps it’s a glossy blue-black; perhaps it reflects a mood more than a shade.
With orange, we named the fruit before the colour. But only in English. Mentions of the fruit appear from the 1300s. ‘Orange’ was borrowed from the Old French orenge, which was borrowed from the Arabic nāranj, which came from the Persian nārang, which sprung from the Sanskrit nāranga, the word for orange tree.
Women might see colours better than men do. In humans, most of the colour-perception genes are on the X chromosome. Since men have only one X chromosome and women have two, it explains why more men are colour-blind. In addition, 15% of women might be tetrachromats, able see more colour variations than normal humans, and recognising several shades of, say, brown, where others see only one.
A dead musician is claiming purple for himself. Prince died in 2016, but fans associate him with a vibrant purple that made it to his costumes, stage design and even the hit, Purple Rain. His estate is attempting to trademark the shade. Thus far, the US Patent and Trademark Office has refused permission.
One of the first synthetic dyes was invented by accident. On his summer break in 1856, 18-year-old William Henry Perkin was hoping to create a synthetic form of quinine and cash in on it as a cure for malaria. His experiments instead produced a bright stain that just wouldn’t wash off fabrics. His patented process ended up on silks and even royal wedding gowns, revolutionising the textile industry. The colour he created: Mauve.
A Chennai-born chemist invented the first new blue in 200 years, in 2009. YInMn, created by professor Mas Subramanian’s materials science lab at Oregon State University, is a vivid cobalt, but unlike cobalt, it’s not poisonous, doesn’t fade with age, resists oil, water, and sunlight, and might have heat-resistant properties too.
