Yellow and blue paint does not give you green!

Any artist probably can tell you that when they add yellow paint to blue paint, they almost definitely get green paint.

However, from the earlier post:

Paint is yellow because it reflects red and green light to the eye and absorbs blue.
Paint is blue because it reflects blue light to the eye and absorbs red and green

In this case, by mixing the two paints together, we are suppose to either get paint which:

reflect all three colours, resulting in white paint;
absorb all three colours, resulting in black paint;
or, reflecting and absorbing all three colours in parts, resulting in different shades of grey paint.

So why aint it so?

Not sure if anyone ever thought about this problem, but here's the reason why:

When people see cyan, they usually think that it is 'light blue'. In actual fact, cyan has a certain amount of green in the paint itself, making it an 'un-pure' paint.

In fact, there is still no such thing as a purely blue paint. By that, it means that there does not exist a dye that would only simulate the 'blue' cone of our eyes.

The truth is, our technology has yet been able to find a completely blue pigment and all of our current blue paints actually contains many wavelengths of light around the green part of the spectrum.

Also, apart from those factors, there is also the problem of complex chemical reactions due to the impurities in the chemicals that results in yellow and blue paint giving green.

In fact, according to the theory mentioned in the earlier post,

Green + Magenta = black/white,

Red + Cyan = black/white

Amazing? I was surprised myself. But if you think about it, it does seem to make sense!

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The wonders of light and color~

To start off this post, let's first explain what the basic colors of light is. That is namely, red, blue and green.

This is different from the basic components of color which, as we know, are red, blue and yellow.

Now the world of light is different from the world of colors.

In the world of color, red and blue gives purple. red and yellow gives orange, blue and yellow gives green. Sounds all very logical and intuitive. so far so gd.

But in the world of light, everything's not so intuitive anymore.

Red and Blue light gives Magenta (Purplish color)<--gd gd..

Blue and green light gives Cyan (that's peacock blue) <-- still ok...

But. Red and green light gives you Yellow. <-- now tt's strange dun you think?

How come Red and Green light gives Yellow??

Having said all these, here's a trivia for you:

let's go back to colors. Think of your paints. Paints have color not because they emit light but rather because they take away some of the colors from white light.

White light, as most of you should know, contain all the colors of the rainbow: red orange yellow green blue indigo violet.

Because they take away colors from white light, any combination of paint takes away even more colors away from white light. Thus, a combination of paints works differently to a combination of colored lights.

thus,

with this in mind, we look at the following combination of paints:

magenta paint reflects red and blue light to the eye (absorbing green)
yellow paint reflects red and green light to the eye (absorbing blue)
Cyan paint reflects blue and green light to the eye (absorbing red)

In this sense, mixing yellow and cyan means blue and red is absorbed, reflecting green light to the eye. i.e. cyan plus yellow = green paint!

interesting rite?

Now you might wonder, isnt it yellow and blue gives you green? Why yellow and cyan?

And anyone with a bit of logic can see for themselves (though i shall kindly point it out to you) that since

yellow paint reflects red and green light to the eye (absorbing blue) and

blue paint reflect only blue and absorb red and green light,

a combination of those two should effectively absorb everything/ reflect everything!

i.e. Yellow paint and Blue paint should in fact give you a hueless black! or grey! or even white. but not green! (or any other color for that matter) <---strange, yes?

But we all know that this does not happen...

Well, believe it or not, wat i just pointed out is correct. Yellow and Blue paint should, by right, give you a hueless color. So, what gives?

oh boy. =)

Dun you just love these mind boggling puzzles? I've discovered the answer to this qn quite some time ago... but i shant spoil it for ya all... haf fun thinking it over. ^^ i'll explain next time. ta~

All that glitters is not gold.... or is it?

Pardon me for disappearing for so long. Was erm... busy. =p

Anyhow, lemme cont with today's trivia.. i know u are dying to know more. hehehe.

The question of the day is: Is white gold really Gold?

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the answer to the above qn is... yes... and... no...

As some of you might already have known, there really is no such thing as white gold. The so-called white gold selling in those goldsmith shops in ur neighbourhood are actually alloys of gold. These alloys appear either grey, white or silver and are all known to the layman as White Gold.

A bit of info abt the color of gold:

The yellow colour of gold is caused by gold absorbing violet and blue light, but reflecting yellow and red light.

Because real pure gold is very soft, it is usual to mix it with other metals to produce an alloy. (for those who dunno, an alloy is simply a mixture of two or more metals)

I was quite surprised to find out that there are many ways of producing white gold. The most common ways to produce white gold is to mix gold with nickel, zinc, and palladium.

It is said that the above metals produce a whitening or bleaching effect and by simply mixing the two metals together, you produce a difference in the atomic structure which then alters the reflectivity of light of different wavelengths. (hmm too much physics? sorry lar)

anyway...

Nickel/Gold alloys are probably the cheapest to produce. However, nickel tends to result in skin irritation and allergy. (that's y some pple can only buy nickel free jewelleries). Cos of this problem, nickel/gold alloys arent quite the best type of white gold available. Even then, you might like to know that most American and Italian white gold alloys use nickel.

Palladium, a close relative to platinium, is also a very good metal to use for making white gold. Unfortunately, it is also very expensive. Also, it has a very high melting point. <-- not too gd. Nonetheless, palladium/gold alloy is IMHO better bah. Afterall, no nickel means almost everyone (who has money) can wear it without worrying abt skin allergies. ^^ *****

Besides white gold, there is also other colors of gold alloys~

There's Blue gold: Gold / Iron alloy

Green gold: Gold with a high proportion of Silver or Cadmium

Pink gold: 50% Gold, 45% Copper and 5% Silver

White gold: see above. other possible metals include copper, tin, manganese-nickel

Yellow Gold: 50% Gold, 25% Silver and 25% Copper (hmm i wonder wat the diff is..)

Purple Gold: ~79% Gold and 21% aluminium

and last but not least, Black gold

Black gold can be made by many different methods too.

Electrodeposition using black rhodium or ruthenium is one method. Amorphouse carbon is also used at times, with the Plasma Assisted Chemical Vapour Deposition process. Controlled oxidation of carat gold containing chromium or cobalt can also be made to yield black gold. Ruthenium containing, electroplating solutions give a slightly harder black coating as compared to electroplating solutions that contain rhodium.

(wah. lookie cheem words above! oh boy oh boy... =p)

Heard from someone that a very very thin sheet of gold appears pinkish... Cant find any sources that confirms this piece of information as yet... Anyone care to clarify?

however, what i did find out about very thin sheet of gold is that they actually transmit a greenish tint of light. go figure out why urself. then come back and let me noe. =)

Actually if you are taoist, and burn those paper money during the seventh month (ghost festival), you can actually tear a bit of gold foil off one of those paper and look at the light passing through that foil... I remember doing it before and ya.. the light is greenish. ^^ (by the way, i'm not a taoist)

and that ends today's trivia. This session has been brought to you by xae after booty and I started a conversation about 'what composition white gold has' on the mrt whilst going home.

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Now's the time to learn a new word...

The word of the day is

Onomatopoeia

Whoa. BIG word sia... So, what does it mean?

In rhetoric, linguistics and poetry, onomatopoeia is a figure of speech that employs a word, or occasionally, a grouping of words, that imitates, echoes, or suggests the object it is describing, such as "bang", "click", "fizz", "hush" or "buzz" and not "moo" "quack" or "meow", since animals do not create those sounds.

Onomatopoetic words exist in every language, although they are different in each. For example, in Latin, tuxtax is the equivalent of "bam" or "whack" and was meant to imitate the sound of blows landing. In Ancient Greek, koax was used as the sound of a frog. In Japanese, dokidoki is used to indicate the beating of a heart.

One onomatopoeia word i always use when playing one of my fave games in yahoogames wld be "boing boing". Cos the balls there go 'boing boing' =)

Other onomatopoeia words include: plop, bloop, crack etc.

Can ya think of other onomatopoetic words?

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Suffering from cramps gers?

Girls suffering from cramps take note!

Just read from here that besides the usual (read: boring) ways of relieving the pain... you can also try...

Having an orgasm! (and the website went to say for gd measure that you can have it "alone or with a partner". hehehe)

ooh and Kung fu!

"Ovarian Kung Fu alleviates or even eliminates menstrual cramps and PMS, it also ensures smooth transition through menopause"

Now there are more interesting ways to relieve ur cramps and *ahem* 'enjoy' urself at the same time gals! =p

erm as for guys.

Option number one allows you to actually help ur gf relieve her menstrual cramps wor... Finally you can actually do something to help her instead of just sitting there listening to her ranting. That's provided she doesnt knock u on ur head for suggesting that option in the first place. hehehe.

Myth? Fact? A women issue. =p

Have you ever heard the theory that when women live in close proximity with each other they tend to menstruate at the same time?

Think that it is a myth? Think again!

Apparently, this is a fact and it is said to be an evolutionary phenomenon.

This is a phenomenon that medical science only became aware of in the last 30 years. But in fact, it has already been documented first among nuns.

Apparently, if a group of women were to live close to each other for a long time, their menstrual periods will initially be asynchronous. However, after a while, some would have shorter or longer periods until all of them have their periods at the same time. In that way, they'll then be fertile at about the same time as well.

The reason for this phenomenon is still not clear but one of the explanation scientists gave was that since a woman is only fertile for a small part of each month, and if in a tribe, all the women are fertile at the same time, it would mean that men of that tribe will have less chances of having alot of children by a lot of women.

More importantly, if women had different cycles, the men might pick the wrong girl to fertilise. i.e. no offsprings *gasp!* However, if all the women are sychronised, then he can't be wrong cos they are all fertile at the same time. So confirm can haf offsprings.

This way, it compensates for congenital male cluelessness about women's bodies. =p

I've checked this with several other website... and they all agreed that the phenomenon is real but most cant really give an explanation why. Wonder wat's the mechanism behind all this.. I mean... we gals wun go ard telling each other when our periods start and everything. So somehow, our bodies communicate to each other and synchronises our periods without us knowing! hmm... *update* from the website below, apparently it's due to a scent females give out. read how they test out the scent theory. pretty gross i think

The article i got the above explanation from is here. It has loads of interesting scientific issues on sexual selection if you are interested to read more.

oh and here's wat another website says:

there are women who are menstrual pacesetters--they made other women conform to their cycles. So if those women are around you (if you are a girl) beware! Heh.

men also have an effect on women's menstrual cycles--and not just because they make women pregnant. Women who associate with males frequently find that their periods become shorter and more regular.

hmm do i see males cringing? got information overload anot? =p Gers.. does this article help solve a bit of mystery regarding the synchronisation now? =)