Ask Chromus
Ok, I screwed up on both. The cookie thing was a total guess, as I forgot that I could look up the etymology of a word in the dictionary. I would like it to be noted that I guessed, so it shouldn't be taken very seriously.
I guess my memory doesn't serve me as well as I thought it did, since that's what I remembered about chlorophyll from high school science. Upon doing a little research, I found this little gem: http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/b ... 0079d.html
There's no one reason that non-green leaves stay non-green. Some have pigments that protect the plant from excessive UV light, while other pigments are toxic and protect the plant from predetors. Some of the pigments are better at absorbing different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, like the beta-carotene that makes carrots orange. Artificial selection by humans also promotes the growth of plants that we like to look at or we think will sell better.
I guess my memory doesn't serve me as well as I thought it did, since that's what I remembered about chlorophyll from high school science. Upon doing a little research, I found this little gem: http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/b ... 0079d.html
There's no one reason that non-green leaves stay non-green. Some have pigments that protect the plant from excessive UV light, while other pigments are toxic and protect the plant from predetors. Some of the pigments are better at absorbing different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, like the beta-carotene that makes carrots orange. Artificial selection by humans also promotes the growth of plants that we like to look at or we think will sell better.
Whoo... Took me a while to find it, but here's the original post I made a long time ago about color theory.
Reading about the subject online, we find that the additive system doesn't work in dyes. Red paint subtracts green and blue light and green paint subtracts red and blue light. If you mixed them, you would get a very dark yellow, since most of the color is being subtracted out. Here's a link to a page that explains it in more detail: http://www.rgbworld.com/color.htmlchromus wrote:Phred: You've touched on a very odd topic here. The problem is that there are a few groups of people who are diametrically opposed on this issue. Let's go over the basics: all the color that we see is composed of light. The red can of Coke sitting next to me looks red because red light is boucing off of it and into my eyes. Everything you see behaves in this fashion: it looks a certain color because that is the color of light that is reflected off of it. Another thing to consider is that all colors that we see can be broken down into three components: red, green, and blue. That means that everything we look at reflects some combination of red, green, and blue. The red coke can next to me reflects mostly red light, along with a little of the other two because it's not a perfect red. When you consider both of these, what Jo-Chan said is right: white light is all three colors mixed together, while black is the absence of all three. Because there is no such thing that reflects perfect white or black, we will always get varying degrees of the red, green, and blue that reflect. This also explains the RGB system used by computers. Computer monitors project light for each pixel, so each pixel needs to have a red, green, and blue value.
Art is a totally different matter. Classically, we've been told that using red, yellow, and blue paint, we can make any color. This technically isn't true. If you were to combine red, yellow, and blue paint, you wouldn't get white or black, like you would expect. You would get a sort of muddy brown. The reason art teachers like to teach that is because you can still make a wide variety of color, plus red, yellow, and blue dye was much cheaper to make and buy a long time ago, so it has stuck. Truly, there are three dyes than can be used to make any color: cyan, magenta, and yellow. That's why inkjet printers use these colors. The combination of the three produces black, and the absence of the three shows white.
So far, we have two different systems:
Light: RGB
Dye: CMY
The cool thing is that these two systems are intimately related. In light, the combination of red and green makes yellow, green and blue makes cyan, and blue and red makes magenta. This works in reverse: yellow and cyan makes green, cyan and magenta makes blue, and magenta and yellow make red. When we consider this, we can see all colors in a nice way: all the colors that we see can be expressed in the formula xr+yg+zb where x, y, and z are the amounts of red, green, and blue that we see. This way, cyan, magenta, and yellow can be seen as -x, -y, and -z. This means that for each unit cyan you add, you subtract that much red from the surface. Example: You have a bright white piece of paper. Currently, it's formula is 255r+255g+255b (I'm using the standard 0-255 system of color). You add pure cyan dye to the paper. Because pure cyan is -255r, the new formula is 0r+255g+255b. If you remember, pure green plus pure blue is cyan, so this works!
In the way I just explained it, RGB is called the additive system and CMY is called the subtractive system, named after the way they add and subtract colors.
Personally, I don't make a distinction. To me, cyan is just -red, and so on, but others disagree with me in that respect.
-
Dither
- Pez-Eater
- Posts: 133
- Joined: Thu Jul 11, 2002 4:44 pm
- Location: Gaithersburg, Maryland
- Contact:
What is the exact sentence and context of the part of the U.S. constitution that supposedly says there is seperation of church from state? Are all of the major music video channels really owned by the same corporation? Does it cost more for a married couple to file taxes together then it would if they werent married and filed seperatley? What reason do same sex couples use to justify their claim that they need to be legally married to visit their loced ones in the hospital or make decisions for them, when they can just get medical power of attorney and get those same rights? Is it too expensive or hard to get medical power of attorney? If a band says on their website, one of their songs or their music video that they want you to pirate a copy of that video or song.. does that make it legal to do so? Example: Korn's Y'all Want a Single.
Dither
Dither
-
android_2628
- What's a Pez?
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 8:11 pm
- Location: In front of my computer, silly.
I hope I'm doing this right...
Because they're from Montreal. It's short for Habitants, as in the guys living under the seignurial system.
Uh... holy crap? Dither seems to always post a hundred questions at once, so I'll be here a while. It's easier to answer in reverse order today, as well as grouping Dither's questions by subject.
Android is right about the Habs. In 1924, the owner of the team, Tex Rickard, was falsely told that the H in the symbol for the Montreal Canadiens stood for Habitants, a French term referring to the farmers of Quebec, since all the French players on the team came from the farms of Quebec. Source: http://www.habs.com/history/habs.htm.
ROYGBIV is actually just an acronym that helps memorize what art teachers call the main colors. It stands for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. Visible light is actually composed of red, green, and blue light, which can combine to form the many colors of the spectrum.
According to the Texas Medical Association, it's free to give medical power of attorney to someone else. The only things you need are two witnesses who will testify that they saw you sign the document. Here's the info: http://www.texmed.org/pmt/lel/legalmedurable.asp.
While you won't find it anywhere in the constitution, the arguments of separation of church and state stem from the first amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Source: http://www.archives.gov/national_archiv ... cript.html. Since it is part of a document written over 200 years ago, people are prone to take it out of context. There's no one right way to interpret this, and the Supreme Court and many others are still working on it.
Unfortunately, there's no clear cut answer for which kind of tax return is cheaper. Generally, you should do both, and send in the tax return that has the highest return or the lowest cost. The Motley Fool has detailed information about which return is cheaper in which situation, and here's the link: http://www.fool.com/taxes/2000/taxes000526.htm.
Since this varies from state to state, I can only give a good answer for the state that I live in, Maryland. In Maryland, if you can't make medical decisions yourself (for instance, if you suffered brain damage and became mentally handicapped) the first person hospitals are supposed to ask are your appointed agent. If you don't have one of those, the default is for the closest family member or friend to make the decision. In some states, close friends aren't allowed to speak for the patient, and it is in these states that the same sex union argument comes up when medical policy is concerned. Since homosexuals can't legally marry, your homosexual "spouse" can't make medical decisions for you if you become incapacitated. While it's easy enough to designate your spouse as having medical power of attorney, a lot of homosexual couples want the same rights and fallbacks as heterosexual couples. Here's a link describing how others can make medical decisions for you in Maryland: http://www.mdoa.state.md.us/Caregiving/ ... sions.html.
Once I took a look at the Korn website, I saw what might have sparked a lot of these questions. Korn's latest single, "Y'all Want a Single" talks about the domination of the music industry and the music video provides a message at the end which asks fans to pirate and spread the video. For those who are interested, links to the song and its video can be found on Korn's news page: http://www.korn.com/korn/index.php?newsID=1.
You'd be surprised at who owns what. The only music video stations that I know of are MTV and VH1, and the both of them are owned by Viacom. Here's a full list of all the cable broadcasting networks that Viacom owns: http://www.viacom.com/unitbyseg.tin?sBu ... ckname=ctv. From there, you can get a list of almost all the companies that Viacom owns.
For those of you who are interested in who owns what radio station, the major owner is Clear Channel, who used to host Howard Stern's show, and their radio page can be found here: http://clearchannel.com/Radio/home.aspx. By clicking on search, you can search for stations that Clear Channel owns in your area. One station that surprised me is DC101, a very popular station where I live. It's interesting to search the web and find out who owns the station you like to listen to.
Unfortunetly, Korn has a recording contract with Sony, and as such, Sony owns their music and the rights to use the music. Just because Korn says that you can freely distribute a song doesn't mean you can. Sony has the final say on how the music that they own can be used. This kind of situation can be applied to any recording company.
Wow, that was a boatload of questions, but I didn't mind answering them. Keep it up!
Android is right about the Habs. In 1924, the owner of the team, Tex Rickard, was falsely told that the H in the symbol for the Montreal Canadiens stood for Habitants, a French term referring to the farmers of Quebec, since all the French players on the team came from the farms of Quebec. Source: http://www.habs.com/history/habs.htm.
ROYGBIV is actually just an acronym that helps memorize what art teachers call the main colors. It stands for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. Visible light is actually composed of red, green, and blue light, which can combine to form the many colors of the spectrum.
According to the Texas Medical Association, it's free to give medical power of attorney to someone else. The only things you need are two witnesses who will testify that they saw you sign the document. Here's the info: http://www.texmed.org/pmt/lel/legalmedurable.asp.
While you won't find it anywhere in the constitution, the arguments of separation of church and state stem from the first amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Source: http://www.archives.gov/national_archiv ... cript.html. Since it is part of a document written over 200 years ago, people are prone to take it out of context. There's no one right way to interpret this, and the Supreme Court and many others are still working on it.
Unfortunately, there's no clear cut answer for which kind of tax return is cheaper. Generally, you should do both, and send in the tax return that has the highest return or the lowest cost. The Motley Fool has detailed information about which return is cheaper in which situation, and here's the link: http://www.fool.com/taxes/2000/taxes000526.htm.
Since this varies from state to state, I can only give a good answer for the state that I live in, Maryland. In Maryland, if you can't make medical decisions yourself (for instance, if you suffered brain damage and became mentally handicapped) the first person hospitals are supposed to ask are your appointed agent. If you don't have one of those, the default is for the closest family member or friend to make the decision. In some states, close friends aren't allowed to speak for the patient, and it is in these states that the same sex union argument comes up when medical policy is concerned. Since homosexuals can't legally marry, your homosexual "spouse" can't make medical decisions for you if you become incapacitated. While it's easy enough to designate your spouse as having medical power of attorney, a lot of homosexual couples want the same rights and fallbacks as heterosexual couples. Here's a link describing how others can make medical decisions for you in Maryland: http://www.mdoa.state.md.us/Caregiving/ ... sions.html.
Once I took a look at the Korn website, I saw what might have sparked a lot of these questions. Korn's latest single, "Y'all Want a Single" talks about the domination of the music industry and the music video provides a message at the end which asks fans to pirate and spread the video. For those who are interested, links to the song and its video can be found on Korn's news page: http://www.korn.com/korn/index.php?newsID=1.
You'd be surprised at who owns what. The only music video stations that I know of are MTV and VH1, and the both of them are owned by Viacom. Here's a full list of all the cable broadcasting networks that Viacom owns: http://www.viacom.com/unitbyseg.tin?sBu ... ckname=ctv. From there, you can get a list of almost all the companies that Viacom owns.
For those of you who are interested in who owns what radio station, the major owner is Clear Channel, who used to host Howard Stern's show, and their radio page can be found here: http://clearchannel.com/Radio/home.aspx. By clicking on search, you can search for stations that Clear Channel owns in your area. One station that surprised me is DC101, a very popular station where I live. It's interesting to search the web and find out who owns the station you like to listen to.
Unfortunetly, Korn has a recording contract with Sony, and as such, Sony owns their music and the rights to use the music. Just because Korn says that you can freely distribute a song doesn't mean you can. Sony has the final say on how the music that they own can be used. This kind of situation can be applied to any recording company.
Wow, that was a boatload of questions, but I didn't mind answering them. Keep it up!
More color fun: Niether the RGB nor the CMY systems completely cover the visible spectrum, and for printing purposes the system usually used is CMYK, where the K represents black ink. This is used because it would take a lot of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink to absorb enough light to produce very dark colors, so it is better to just use black ink.
The way color really works is there are 3 types of color sensitive cells in your eyes. One type is most sensitive to red, another is most sensitive to green, and the other is most sensitive to blue. These are called cone cells, there are also rod cells which are more generalized and used for seeing in black and white in low light conditions.
The three types of cone cells aren't completely focused on one particular wavelength, but instead are each sensitive to a range of wavelengths (which overlap a bit). When a certain wavelength of light stimulates these cells, the amount of activation in each of the three types determines what color is seen. A rainbow has all the wavelengths in the visible spectrum (and past the edges of the rainbow are some wavelengths that the cones are not sensitive to, like ultraviolet and infrared). The colors of the rainbow are caused by the activation triggered by the different wavelengths. Not all colors are in the rainbow, for example brown. The rainbow only contains colors formed by a single pure wavelength. Other colors are formed by multiple wavelengths simultaneously stimulating the cones.
Because the cells are most sensitive to red, green, and blue, most colors can be reproduced by just combining those 3 wavelengths in varying amounts (and the same effect is produced in print by absorbing the complementary wavelengths, cyan magenta and yellow, in varying amounts).
Some visible colors cannot be reproduced on a standard television or monitor or printed using CYMK inks. To do so would require negative amounts of the red, green, or blue wavelengths or negative amounts of the inks, which is of course impossible. There are color models that can cover the entire visible spectrum, but they are more complicated since they don't have "pure" colors (like red green blue or cyan magenta yellow).
Television signals use another model which encodes the luminance (lightness) as one value and chrominance (color) as two other values. Televisions convert this signal to approximately RBG to display on the screen. Because luminance is encoded separately from chrominance, the signal is backwards compatible with black and white televisions, which only display luminance.
Another area where color is important is in manufacturing. For example, when someone wants some plastic part to be produced in a particular color, there are actually experts who try to mix different kinds of pigments to produce a plastic chip as close to the sample color as possible, while trying to use as little pigment as possible (to save money). In these cases the color model is not nearly as simple as RGB, so coming up with a way to match a color using the avalable pigments just takes guesswork, using previous color samples as a starting point.
In conclusion: color is complicated.
The way color really works is there are 3 types of color sensitive cells in your eyes. One type is most sensitive to red, another is most sensitive to green, and the other is most sensitive to blue. These are called cone cells, there are also rod cells which are more generalized and used for seeing in black and white in low light conditions.
The three types of cone cells aren't completely focused on one particular wavelength, but instead are each sensitive to a range of wavelengths (which overlap a bit). When a certain wavelength of light stimulates these cells, the amount of activation in each of the three types determines what color is seen. A rainbow has all the wavelengths in the visible spectrum (and past the edges of the rainbow are some wavelengths that the cones are not sensitive to, like ultraviolet and infrared). The colors of the rainbow are caused by the activation triggered by the different wavelengths. Not all colors are in the rainbow, for example brown. The rainbow only contains colors formed by a single pure wavelength. Other colors are formed by multiple wavelengths simultaneously stimulating the cones.
Because the cells are most sensitive to red, green, and blue, most colors can be reproduced by just combining those 3 wavelengths in varying amounts (and the same effect is produced in print by absorbing the complementary wavelengths, cyan magenta and yellow, in varying amounts).
Some visible colors cannot be reproduced on a standard television or monitor or printed using CYMK inks. To do so would require negative amounts of the red, green, or blue wavelengths or negative amounts of the inks, which is of course impossible. There are color models that can cover the entire visible spectrum, but they are more complicated since they don't have "pure" colors (like red green blue or cyan magenta yellow).
Television signals use another model which encodes the luminance (lightness) as one value and chrominance (color) as two other values. Televisions convert this signal to approximately RBG to display on the screen. Because luminance is encoded separately from chrominance, the signal is backwards compatible with black and white televisions, which only display luminance.
Another area where color is important is in manufacturing. For example, when someone wants some plastic part to be produced in a particular color, there are actually experts who try to mix different kinds of pigments to produce a plastic chip as close to the sample color as possible, while trying to use as little pigment as possible (to save money). In these cases the color model is not nearly as simple as RGB, so coming up with a way to match a color using the avalable pigments just takes guesswork, using previous color samples as a starting point.
In conclusion: color is complicated.
-
Dither
- Pez-Eater
- Posts: 133
- Joined: Thu Jul 11, 2002 4:44 pm
- Location: Gaithersburg, Maryland
- Contact:
Sorry.. i got more questions.. in a large batch...
Which came first, the lighter or the match?
I heard that a polar bear's fur isnt really white, that its clear. Is this true?
It's said that Heinz Ketchup is the slowest ketchup in the world. What speed does it travel, when poured from a bottle?
Do women really blink more on average then men?
The english language has alot of words that have multiple meanings.. what word has the largest number of different definitions?
Is the dot over a lower-case i considered an accent mark? If so, does it have a name?
Where does the saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" come from?
Which came first, the lighter or the match?
I heard that a polar bear's fur isnt really white, that its clear. Is this true?
It's said that Heinz Ketchup is the slowest ketchup in the world. What speed does it travel, when poured from a bottle?
Do women really blink more on average then men?
The english language has alot of words that have multiple meanings.. what word has the largest number of different definitions?
Is the dot over a lower-case i considered an accent mark? If so, does it have a name?
Where does the saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" come from?