What Color Is Everything When Nobody Is Looking?

How your mind makes up stuff to make sense of it all

How we perceive colors at different wavelengths of light. Photo by Mirza Babic on Unsplash

“Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet.” — Paul Klee

Is the sky really blue? Is white color made up of all colors? It sure seems like it, but it only does so, because our brain makes up such properties.

You have probably learned in school, that light is an electromagnetic wave, and the wavelength of this wave will determine the color of the light if it’s in the visible spectrum. If you want to refresh this knowledge or learn more about light, including a cool mindmap of all of its properties, check out my other piece, The Science of Light, the Heartbeat of the Universe.

The Science of Light, the Heartbeat of the Universe

Here’s what you might have learned:

The distribution of electromagnetic waves with respect to frequency and wavelength, highlighting visible spectrum, source: Wikimedia.