Story time with Uncle Tyson: WCA's scrambling orientation

[qqwref]

We're also all familiar with "peanuts", "brazil nuts" and "coconuts", right? Doesn't mean botanists are wrong for having definitions where those aren't nuts.

Interesting point, but it's a different situation, because plenty of people would not consider "coconut" an intuitive answer to the question "which nut is it".

I agree. Nobody should flat out say "black isn't a color". But I do find it ok to say "using definition X, black isn't a color". Same with white, and same with saying they *are* colors. It simply depends on the context, the application, and what makes most sense there.

There's no context here - it's the general context of non-scientific speech. I haven't seen anyone saying "by X definition black isn't a color", they're just flat out saying "black isn't a color" as if it's a universal law of nature. To me, when dealing in a general context, there is no point in having a definition unless you can talk about and explain common things in the world with it. Otherwise, your definition conflicts with how we actually view the world, and then there's no point in having that definition at all (you might as well define "color" as "species of elephant"). And I think most people see a black or white object in the same way they see a red object, and distinguish between black and red in the same way they distinguish between blue and red.

Sure, people refer to black and white as colors, but scientifically speaking black is the absence of colors and white is all colors in the spectrum. Light causes objects to reflect colors that we can see based on the effect of a specific wavelength.

By "color" you mean "wavelength of visible light", yes? But then you will very rarely see single colors anyway. Yes, "white is all colors in the spectrum", but a bright blue light is also *almost* all colors in the spectrum - in fact the vast majority of objects you see reflect more than one wavelength of visible light towards your eyes. Even the sky is not strictly "blue", but simply has decreasing amounts of each wavelength as you move towards red. It is not useful (i.e. does not help our understanding of how colors are used by people, and of how they work) to define colors based on wavelengths of light, unless you are willing to exclude almost all colors you normally see.

 

[cmhardw]

Speaking of story time with Uncle Tyson, whatever became of this?

 

[FatBoyXPC]

"Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum"

That's wikipedia, where anybody would edit that definition. By definition, black is not a color:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/color

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/black - though if you go all the way down to the 20th definition, color is used in the definition.

 

[qqwref]

By definition, black is not a color:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/color
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/black

Color:
1. the quality of an object or substance with respect to light reflected by the object [...]

Black:
1. absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.

By these definitions I would say reflecting no light (i.e. being black) counts as a possible way an object could reflect light (i.e. a color), just like how "zero" is a number, and "nobody" is a possible set of people.

 

[cmhardw]

Hi everyone,

Please move the general color discussion to the thread: Are white and black considered colors? This thread was recently created for this purpose.

Any color discussion in this thread as it relates to the official WCA scrambling scheme is fine. I am only referring to the more general discussion regarding black and white being colors, as well as color definitions.

Chris

 

[Pixel 6]

Good read. I knew there had to be a reason... never would have guessed that it was 1 man's preference though! That's crazy awesome.

- Pixel -

(edit... "my father used to make outrageous claims... like he invented the question mark."

- Dr. Evil -