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Re: Color



At 06:24 AM 11/1/00 -0500, Herman E. Carl wrote:
Yesterday, an eighth grader ask is white was a color. Could someone
please elaborate on the question. I need the opinions for a colleague.

The answer is "yes and no".

Sometimes people use white as the name of a color. Example:
Q: What color of paper would you like?
A: White.

See:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=white definition 1b
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=color definitions 1a and 1b

===

Sometimes people define white to be the absence of color. Example:
Q: Would you like colored paper?
A: No, just white.

See:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=white definition 1a
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=color definition 1c

========

The foregoing has nothing to do with the physics of color or the physiology
of color perception. It is just words. It is something to study in
English class, not physics class.

Actually "white" can be defined in a reasonable way; it is the definition
of "color" that is messed up.

For serious discussions of physics and physiology, one does not need a
precise definition of color. We use terms like
-- chrominance and luminance
-- hue, saturation, and value
-- RGB
-- CMYK
which have been given specific technical meanings.