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[–] 11 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I wonder if there are some metals that appear grey to us but actually have a color, we just don't see it because it's outside our visible spectrum

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    That is the very definition of colour. The part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can see. The rest of the scale includes infrared, gamma or X-ray. If you want, you can call them invisible colours - or you can call green superhighultraviolet.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    In everyday context yes, but it’s pretty common to use “colour” to refer to frequency outside the visible range, and it’s interesting to consider what interesting “colours” we are missing out on because they’re outside our visible range.

    Silver/grey implies even response across the spectrum, and is the normal expectation.

    If we couldn’t see yellow (red/green) then gold would presumably look silver to us, so are there silver/grey metals that would have an interesting colour if only we could see it?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    If a bee sees a color we cannot, it would be pretty silly to insist it's not a color on the basis of us being unable to see it, wouldn't it?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Color is visible light in the human spectrum. We would say they see in the ultraviolet or infrared spectrum. Non human animals don’t use the literature so it’s designed with human perception in mind.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    ... when charged particles move faster than the speed of light

    So that got me curious, and found this

    nothing travels faster than light in vacuum, but light can be slowed down and something can travel faster than this "slower" light

    Somehow I've gone through decades of life without knowing this..

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    What also surprised me is that the speed difference depending on medium is actually quite substantial. For example, glass has a refractive index of about 1.5.

    So, the speed of light in glass is c/1.5 ≈ 200.000 km/s, i.e. 66% of the speed of light in vacuum.

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