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To: Eastbound
For example: Suppose I wanted my den painted any shade of blue and the contractor painted it red. I sue and lose because the court said red was a shade of blue, re-defining the color frequency limits to include red to the previously-defined blue spectrum. In essence, the court re-defined what constituted the color, blue.

Actually, the color issue is somewhat interesting because colors are not always well-defined. It is quite possible to have an object which will appear reddish when illuminated by one apparently-white light source and yet appear bluish when illuminated by another. As a general convention, colors of objects are described as they would appear if illuminated by daylight; this is usually good, though certain types of indoor lighting may cause such objects to appear the "wrong" color.

Example #1 (highly-contrived I'll admit): suppose a wall is painted a very dark shade of blue, but then painted with a transparent fluorescent dye that glows red. Under daylight, there may be enough UV to produce a reddish appearance; under artificial light, the blue would dominate.

Example #2 (also contrived): The wall is built of a material which is slightly reflective of a wide range of 'reddish' wavelengths but is extremely reflective of one particular bluish wavelength which is generated by fluorescent tubes. Only a small fraction of daylight would fall in the narrow blue wavelength, but a significant portion of the light from a fluorescent would fall there.

Example #3 (testable experimentally): Most white LED's produce a collection of wavelengths which taken together appear white, but are nowhere near a full spectrum. Although white LED flashlights can provide usable color discernment, objects illuminated by white LED's often appear quite different in color from those same objects illuminated in daylight. It's not at all uncommon for two objects which look about the same in daylight to look very different when illuminated via white LED.

15 posted on 07/26/2003 10:50:09 AM PDT by supercat (TAG--you're it!)
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To: supercat
Very interesting, supercat. Thanks for the information and taking the time to reply.
35 posted on 07/26/2003 7:20:49 PM PDT by Eastbound
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