Whether a specific colour was green or yellow. We eventually looked up the RGB value to settle it, and as it turns out it is the exact shade that’s halfway to yellow and halfway to green.
Did you date my former coworker? I used to use a chartreuse coathanger because it was the only one of that color, which made it easy for me to spot. One day, as I was putting my coat away, this coworker started talking as if we were already mid-way through an argument. “It’s so green. I don’t know why you said it’s yellow.” Huh? I had no idea what he was talking about at first. I asked if he meant my coathanger, and I responded that I didn’t know what color it was. (I didn’t know what “chartreuse” meant yet.) He ranted on, claiming we fought about it once before, even though this was the first time he’d even talked about my coathanger. It was bizarre.
I think that guy had something psychologically troubling going on. I’d also seen him: ask a question, make up an answer for that question, then immediately proceed to believe the answer he made up with 100% certainty. The question? “How do those Magic Eraser cleaning sponges work?” His answer? “They use paint.” I asked how it could possibly match the color of every surface it’s used on, but he insisted his answer must be right. Truly magical thinking.
I also saw him watch an ad for a random product, then promptly declare that he needed that product. I had always thought of ads as something to tune out, but he legit followed them as if they were friends giving advice. I had never seen anything like that.
Colour theory is extremely complicated and you can’t really tell from an RGB value in isolation that it represent a colour “exactly halfway” between green and yellow. Colour is perceptual, not a physical phenomenon, and this has significant meaningful consequences. But I’m glad you found a narrative that saved your marriage.
Yellow is Red + Green, so half way between Yellow and Green would be what, 50% Red + 100% Green?
Like you said, color is perceptual, and not only will everyone’s eyes have a slightly different sensitivity for each wavelength, each display will have a slightly different calibration for its RGB channels.
If the original color was in real life, the camera sensor would also be taking the full light spectrum and collapsing it into 3 RGB values, and the camera sensor’s sensitivity/calibration will determine the ratio it converts a yellow wavelength into red and green. (Or maybe the real object isn’t actually yellow, but pure red-+green light, it’s impossible to tell after converting to RGB)
It also depends on the viewing device and the response curves of each subpixel element, colourspace transformations both incidental and intentional (eg colour temperature), other nearby colours, viewing environment conditions, mood and physical temperature of the viewer, psychological priming, and gott knows how many other circumstances.
Whether a specific colour was green or yellow. We eventually looked up the RGB value to settle it, and as it turns out it is the exact shade that’s halfway to yellow and halfway to green.
We were both equally correct in the end.
Did you date my former coworker? I used to use a chartreuse coathanger because it was the only one of that color, which made it easy for me to spot. One day, as I was putting my coat away, this coworker started talking as if we were already mid-way through an argument. “It’s so green. I don’t know why you said it’s yellow.” Huh? I had no idea what he was talking about at first. I asked if he meant my coathanger, and I responded that I didn’t know what color it was. (I didn’t know what “chartreuse” meant yet.) He ranted on, claiming we fought about it once before, even though this was the first time he’d even talked about my coathanger. It was bizarre.
I think that guy had something psychologically troubling going on. I’d also seen him: ask a question, make up an answer for that question, then immediately proceed to believe the answer he made up with 100% certainty. The question? “How do those Magic Eraser cleaning sponges work?” His answer? “They use paint.” I asked how it could possibly match the color of every surface it’s used on, but he insisted his answer must be right. Truly magical thinking.
I also saw him watch an ad for a random product, then promptly declare that he needed that product. I had always thought of ads as something to tune out, but he legit followed them as if they were friends giving advice. I had never seen anything like that.
So it was chartreuse.
Was this a debate about tennis balls? My spouse and I have had this exact disagreement!
Not tennis balls, no. Quite frankly I can’t remember what it was. Just the colour stuck 😅
Colour theory is extremely complicated and you can’t really tell from an RGB value in isolation that it represent a colour “exactly halfway” between green and yellow. Colour is perceptual, not a physical phenomenon, and this has significant meaningful consequences. But I’m glad you found a narrative that saved your marriage.
Yellow is Red + Green, so half way between Yellow and Green would be what, 50% Red + 100% Green?
Like you said, color is perceptual, and not only will everyone’s eyes have a slightly different sensitivity for each wavelength, each display will have a slightly different calibration for its RGB channels.
If the original color was in real life, the camera sensor would also be taking the full light spectrum and collapsing it into 3 RGB values, and the camera sensor’s sensitivity/calibration will determine the ratio it converts a yellow wavelength into red and green. (Or maybe the real object isn’t actually yellow, but pure red-+green light, it’s impossible to tell after converting to RGB)
It also depends on the viewing device and the response curves of each subpixel element, colourspace transformations both incidental and intentional (eg colour temperature), other nearby colours, viewing environment conditions, mood and physical temperature of the viewer, psychological priming, and gott knows how many other circumstances.