Do you think it's possible to imagine a colour nobody has ever seen before?

Answer 1

Sorry to disappoint you, but color is just the wavelenght of light. there are primary colors, you can see them on a rainbow, or separating the different lenghts of light waves using a prism.

Every color is a mixture of the primary colors. Check out the pantone scale.

Answer 2

If the colour spectrum runs from 2000 angstroms to 4000 angstroms (for example), a colour lying within this range may not have been manufactured before (never seen before) but it is "see-able" and so you can imagine it's a bit darker than the colour on one side and bit lighter than the colour on the other side. But a colour lying outside the spectrum not only hasn't been seen but can''t be seen, so can these be imagined? Is the difference between 2000 angstroms and 1999 angstroms sufficiently analgous to the difference between 2002 and 2001 angstroms, such that one can imagine the "unsee-able" 1999 angstroms based on one's imagination of the unmanufactured 2001 angstroms? What about 2000 vs 1000 based on 3000 vs 2000?

Answer 3

For someone with normal colour vision, which is the majority of the human race, I think it's unlikely.

Our eyes and optic nerve system are 'wired' along pretty standard lines, with rods and cones which cover colours of a defined visible spectrum. Our wiring is as predictable as an electrical circuit in a TV, and works in a set way with colour data.

As part of our learning process as children, we learn to name many of these data as simple colours - 'blue', 'orange', 'green', etc.

As we get a little older we realise that there are far more sophisticated colours around, and not all of them have names ('Aunt Edna's just given me a sweater that's kind of mauvey, bit fuschia-ish, purpley, and just plain...ugly.')

Play around with C, M, Y and K in any design app and you can easily generate colours you can't name. But for a 'correctly-wired' human, that colour has always existed as a possibility. Ditto, if you close your eyes now and try hard to visualise a 'new colour', you tend to generate some that are interesting, but always related in some way to your past experience with colour, and the limits of what your 'hardware' can do.

Some people, however, have a limited ability to step outside the normal range of experience (and that's without magic mushrooms, too.)

Many animals, and a few people, are tetrachromats - they have four, rather than three, types of colour receptor in their eyes. Some people also display synaesthesia, a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are coupled. This can lead to letters, numbers and even music being perceived as colours or shapes.

These variations occur in less than 4% of the human population, but compared to you and me, such people may be able to actively visualise colours that we cannot conceive of.

If you want a different perspective, try re-posting it in one of the science forums - it is actually an issue of cognitive neuroscience.

Answer 4

i love your question....first u have to understand that colors don't really exist, it's only a reflection and an optical illusion from the sun , everythings actually gray sounds crazy but you can pick up this book called yellow and blue don't make green the the visible light we see its split into 6 basic colors from which on;y 3 can be called as "hues" that is RED YELLOW and BLUE from these three colors we see thanks to the electromagnetic spectrum come the other four , ORANGE mix between yellow and red , GREEN mix between blue and yellow and PURPLE mix between red and blue , but now ....how many different reds, greens , blues , purples , oranges , yellows are there????? millions !!! so i hope it is possible one day , back in time colors such as magenta (hot pink), neon green , didnt exist ...how come they do now? this shows you that it is possible , also ...u have to rememeber we are unable to see all colors we only see those 3 primary colors , you know the shrimp sees 300 primary colors?? can you imagine what colors THEY can see?? no u can't i wish we could but we have to use the tools we were given to discover more, we revolve around those 3 colors and all thanks to newton who was the one who discovered and invented the color wheel, so the apple is not red ....is every color but red, i love colors....

Answer 5

Sorry, but no, you probably cannot imagine a color that isn't already visible within that narrow window given to sight in the electromagnetic spectrum. Outside of red, yellow, orange, green, blue, indigo and violet, only a rare few of us can extend into the infrared and ultraviolet but not by much. We cannot see radio waves for instance or Xrays, or gamma rays. We "see" only their effects. Our mind knows they are there but no one is capable of imagining their colors because our concepts of color are limited by expereince. Irridescence, pearlessence, and interference colors may be new to us but they are simply compounds of colors we already are familiar with.

Answer 6

I don't know about nobody. But, I am sure there are some that some people have never seen before.

Answer 7

You mean like a primary color like blue or red???? Think about what color is, i think we as humans are limited to what colors we can see by our own anatomy. Have you ever played a video game and they had one of those make your own color kind of deals whaere you can pic any hue, brightness and saturation? I think that is what we are limited to. I wish i were wrong and that during a spaceship exploration or something we see like a new primary color, but i dont think that is humanly possible.

Answer 8

possible cos imagination has no bounds and explaining it is tough !if u can explain the color of ur imagination to people then it may make u rich..

Answer 9

That would be great...but someone would have to create a new human eye, so I don't think there will be any new colors for a while, unfortunately. =)

Answer 10

I've always wondered that. Like neon brown. Think about it.