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Colour: Why the World Isn't Grey
Why do pebbles look brighter when wet? Is there a "right" order in which to arrange a set of colored crayons? Are blue rooms really "cold"? Why do some clothes change color when ironed? What are the colors you see when you press your eyes? To answer these and other questions, Hazel Rossotti uses scientific basics--matter, energy, and eye structure--to discuss the colors of the natural world, the mechanism of color vision, and a range of color technology from ceramics to television. She includes a fascinating discussion of the uses of color, both "prosaic" (as for camouflage, signaling, and symbolism) and "poetic" (for conveying mood in art and language). Dealing with subjects from refraction to rainbows, chlorophyll to color blindness, this book will appeal both to the general reader and to the scientist.
239 pages, Hardcover
First published September 28, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 15, 2016
Let's face it: most of us lack even a basic understanding of the most elementary phenomena around us. Like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer we pretend to our demon-born ignorance by choice. I feel that even a rudimentary grasp of fundamental principles of the universe is valuable, if only to dispel eldritch notions of devils and demons and angels and dan browns infesting things.
Tackling color is a good place to start. What the hell is it? Why is it? This is an excellent primer which lays it all out for the layperson, free of superstitious dogma or post-modern chromoclaptrap.
Though it can sometimes stray into unflexing scientific jargon that, while blowing my mind, made me want to clap my eyes shut, the book does a fine job of explaining the principle simply and from the get-go. Much of it focuses on what color is, the nature of light, the nature of how color is determined by lots of different things, including individual perception, but there are wonderful parts on why things have certain colors (e.g. the sky, fish) and the role of color in culture.
Fine, fine science, fellow poop-flingers! Come down out of the trees and understand.
Tackling color is a good place to start. What the hell is it? Why is it? This is an excellent primer which lays it all out for the layperson, free of superstitious dogma or post-modern chromoclaptrap.
Though it can sometimes stray into unflexing scientific jargon that, while blowing my mind, made me want to clap my eyes shut, the book does a fine job of explaining the principle simply and from the get-go. Much of it focuses on what color is, the nature of light, the nature of how color is determined by lots of different things, including individual perception, but there are wonderful parts on why things have certain colors (e.g. the sky, fish) and the role of color in culture.
Fine, fine science, fellow poop-flingers! Come down out of the trees and understand.
March 16, 2023
I took an odd path to reading this book. While in high school, I attended “Super Science Fun Day” at the local university. At one point there was a contest to see who could find the most instances of symmetry in a particular image. I won, and this book was my prize. It then sat on my bookshelves or in boxes for over 25 years, during which time I must have hauled it to at least half a dozen different homes, before I finally read it.
And it is an odd book. As nonfiction must have a classification, Colour: Why the World Isn't Grey is classified as science, specifically physics. That is right, but also wrong. It covers the physics of color, but also so much more. It is a science book but is also literary, eschewing the formal and stilted style of peer-reviewed papers and also the bland narrative style of science popularizers. Rossotti starts each chapter with a series of quotations. To give a hint of the sophistication, I'll note that for chapter 7 the book quotes Thomas Hardy, Wordsworth, Coleridge, John Donne, W. H. Davies, Lucretius, Robert Frost, Abraham Cowley, and Samuel Butler. As for the flavor of the book itself, here's a paragraph:
“On this fine summer morning, the English Channel is almost turquoise, trimmed with white; westwards, successive grassy headlands recede from green, through lovat, to smoky blue. The sky is not unrelievedly azure, for this is England, but the clouds are few, small, and mostly white.”
Yet this remains a science book, and reading it will expand the understanding of color for virtually anyone, no matter how many physics classes they've taken. It covers in detail such topics as why different chemicals have sharp vs. dull color, how a chameleon's skin allows it to change color, and how the eye functions. I was told when young that the eye has three sets of cones, one each responding to red, green, and blue light. Thanks to this book, I now know that the situation is substantially more complicated, which each cone responding to a different degree to light all along the visible spectrum. Our brain manages to determine the color at any point we see by combining information from all three types of cones.
And the book contains much much more than that. If you're as old as me, you probably remember that television in your childhood days had much less varied and intense color than the digital TVs of today. Have you ever wondered about the precise reason why? You can learn it in this book, along with answers to countless questions that most of us would rarely think to ask. Truly this is a remarkable book, and the world would be a better place if more authors tackled science with the passion and skill that Hazel Rossotti shows here.
And it is an odd book. As nonfiction must have a classification, Colour: Why the World Isn't Grey is classified as science, specifically physics. That is right, but also wrong. It covers the physics of color, but also so much more. It is a science book but is also literary, eschewing the formal and stilted style of peer-reviewed papers and also the bland narrative style of science popularizers. Rossotti starts each chapter with a series of quotations. To give a hint of the sophistication, I'll note that for chapter 7 the book quotes Thomas Hardy, Wordsworth, Coleridge, John Donne, W. H. Davies, Lucretius, Robert Frost, Abraham Cowley, and Samuel Butler. As for the flavor of the book itself, here's a paragraph:
“On this fine summer morning, the English Channel is almost turquoise, trimmed with white; westwards, successive grassy headlands recede from green, through lovat, to smoky blue. The sky is not unrelievedly azure, for this is England, but the clouds are few, small, and mostly white.”
Yet this remains a science book, and reading it will expand the understanding of color for virtually anyone, no matter how many physics classes they've taken. It covers in detail such topics as why different chemicals have sharp vs. dull color, how a chameleon's skin allows it to change color, and how the eye functions. I was told when young that the eye has three sets of cones, one each responding to red, green, and blue light. Thanks to this book, I now know that the situation is substantially more complicated, which each cone responding to a different degree to light all along the visible spectrum. Our brain manages to determine the color at any point we see by combining information from all three types of cones.
And the book contains much much more than that. If you're as old as me, you probably remember that television in your childhood days had much less varied and intense color than the digital TVs of today. Have you ever wondered about the precise reason why? You can learn it in this book, along with answers to countless questions that most of us would rarely think to ask. Truly this is a remarkable book, and the world would be a better place if more authors tackled science with the passion and skill that Hazel Rossotti shows here.
June 21, 2023
This book covers a wide variety of topics relating to different aspects of color. Not as serious as like a text book, and I enjoyed the quotes/poems opening the chapters. I know this was wrote in the 80s but it’s a book on color, with no color in it. I think it would been nice if the diagrams ect had some color. That would have made it way more interesting. Also the second half of chapter sorting and recording was extremely dry, I could have did with out. Overall I found it informative, easy to read, but would I read it again probably not.
November 23, 2007
I learned at least two interesting things from this book. One was the reason that kittens have blue eyes that later turn green or gold. In the eye are tiny white particles on a background of melanin. The tiny particles scatter high frequency (blue) light more effectively than other wavelengths, so we see blue in the eye. As the cat ages, a layer of yellowish carotenoids forms over the particles, making the eyes appear more green and eventually golden.
Secondly, when we look at a strongly-colored object for a time and then look away, we often see an after-image of the object in a complementary color. Surgeons' scrubs are typically blue-green so that they will be less distracted by blue-green after-images of bright red blood.
This book had information about all aspects of color, from the Newtonian optics of mixing different lights, to painting with colored pigments, to color theory and color matching, to the words we use for colors. Some chapters were brief while others were very detailed. My only complaint is that, in a book about color, it would seem reasonable to expect the illustrations to be done in color. Instead, all of the illustrations are black and white drawings.
Secondly, when we look at a strongly-colored object for a time and then look away, we often see an after-image of the object in a complementary color. Surgeons' scrubs are typically blue-green so that they will be less distracted by blue-green after-images of bright red blood.
This book had information about all aspects of color, from the Newtonian optics of mixing different lights, to painting with colored pigments, to color theory and color matching, to the words we use for colors. Some chapters were brief while others were very detailed. My only complaint is that, in a book about color, it would seem reasonable to expect the illustrations to be done in color. Instead, all of the illustrations are black and white drawings.
April 16, 2008
an explanation of all kinds of color-related phenomena. this gave me tons of ideas for teaching color and light (which are among my favorite things to teach).
August 5, 2012
Fantastic science of colour explained. I learned so much from this book
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews