this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
544 points (99.1% liked)

Science Memes

17865 readers
2559 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That is the very definition of colour. The part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can see. The rest of the scale includes infrared, gamma or X-ray. If you want, you can call them invisible colours - or you can call green superhighultraviolet.

[–] scratchee@feddit.uk 8 points 2 months ago

In everyday context yes, but it’s pretty common to use “colour” to refer to frequency outside the visible range, and it’s interesting to consider what interesting “colours” we are missing out on because they’re outside our visible range.

Silver/grey implies even response across the spectrum, and is the normal expectation.

If we couldn’t see yellow (red/green) then gold would presumably look silver to us, so are there silver/grey metals that would have an interesting colour if only we could see it?

[–] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If a bee sees a color we cannot, it would be pretty silly to insist it's not a color on the basis of us being unable to see it, wouldn't it?

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

Are there creatures that see radio? (Which I suppose is pretty general.) if so, they must hate us.

[–] 5in1k@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 months ago

Color is visible light in the human spectrum. We would say they see in the ultraviolet or infrared spectrum. Non human animals don’t use the literature so it’s designed with human perception in mind.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago

Well infrared goes the other direction. Along with radio.