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Speaker 1: Hey, Orgy. As an artist, do you have a favorite

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Speaker 1: color that you use for scientific cartoons or some colors

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Speaker 1: more sciency than others.

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Speaker 2: Well, it depends on the science. I mean some science

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Speaker 2: it's just more colorful than others.

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Speaker 1: So then what's the color of physics?

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Speaker 2: It kind of depends on the topic too. If it's

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Speaker 2: about lasers, I might use red, or if it's about

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Speaker 2: the sun, I might use a yellow. I've used cian

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Speaker 2: for particle physics.

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Speaker 1: What makes particle physics cian?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. That just kind of would seem like

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Speaker 2: fit to the topic at the time.

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Speaker 1: It just gives you the blues.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Or if it's a red hot topic, I might

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Speaker 2: go for a nice intense red. But for our books

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Speaker 2: they usually go with purple.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what's purple about our curiosity?

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Speaker 2: It's more about the process, you know. It's kind of

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Speaker 2: mentally bruising, I mean mentally enlightening.

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Speaker 1: I think it's position of both of those.

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Speaker 2: It's both blue and red, which makes purple. There you go. Hi,

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Speaker 2: I'm Hoorham Mack, cartoonas and the author of Oliver's Great

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Speaker 2: Big Universe.

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor

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Speaker 1: at U see irvine, and my daughter tells me I

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Speaker 1: can't see mad.

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Speaker 2: WHOA, wait, does that mean that you can't get mad

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Speaker 2: or that you don't see the color red?

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Speaker 1: Yes, As a parent of a stubborn toddler, I never

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Speaker 1: once got mad. Absolutely kept my cool every single moment.

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Speaker 3: No.

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Speaker 1: She and I disagree a lot about what to call

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Speaker 1: various colors, and she's convinced I'm partially colorblind.

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Speaker 2: WHOA have you ever had it checked? Maybe it's true.

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Speaker 2: What does that mean? You can't tell colors apart? Or

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Speaker 2: you can't seek certain colors? But how do you know

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Speaker 2: you can't see them?

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Speaker 1: You can do these tests where you to see numbers

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Speaker 1: out of dots. But she just likes showing me lots

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Speaker 1: of different shades and asking me to come up with

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Speaker 1: names of them. And I'm always like, I don't know

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Speaker 1: wild Mountain raspberry, and she's like, that's not red, it's

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Speaker 1: purple or something.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like she just likes to disagree with you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I raised her right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you raised her to make you read all the time.

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Speaker 2: But anyways, welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explain

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Speaker 2: the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio, in.

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Speaker 1: Which we try to pencil in an explanation for how

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Speaker 1: the universe works. We try to color inside the lines

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Speaker 1: and help you understand how this incredible, glittering, beautiful, bizarre

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Speaker 1: and crazy cosmos actually works, how all those quantum mechanical

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Speaker 1: little particles come together to emerge into this incredible experience

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Speaker 1: that we all enjoy.

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Speaker 2: That's right. We try to paint a picture for you

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Speaker 2: of our amazing and beautiful universe, using all of the

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Speaker 2: hues of the rainbow to try to communicate to you

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Speaker 2: all the feelings and impressions that the universe has in

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Speaker 2: us as a human race.

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Speaker 1: And in the end, science is trying to build a

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Speaker 1: bridge between our visceral experience what you actually feel is

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Speaker 1: a conscious entity, and our mental picture of what's out

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Speaker 1: there in the universe, the mental model we're all putting

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Speaker 1: together trying to explain how the universe itself, absent from

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Speaker 1: our humanity, actually works. But in the end, we never

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Speaker 1: probe that deep reality independent of our senses. We're only

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Speaker 1: limited to understanding how it works as filtered by our

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Speaker 1: eyes and ears and fingertips and everything else.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and as we look at the universe and filter

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Speaker 2: it through our eye. Sometimes it makes us red with

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Speaker 2: anger about the things we don't understand, or blue about

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Speaker 2: the things we may never understand, and sometimes maybe even

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Speaker 2: green and envy of maybe possible aliens out there that

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Speaker 2: have figured it out. Did it miss a color? Orange?

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Speaker 2: Mass orange? For a nice glass of orange?

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Speaker 1: Aren't you glad you made that pun?

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Speaker 2: Nice?

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Speaker 1: All these things are part of our experience. The color

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Speaker 1: purple in your mind is not actually part of the universe,

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Speaker 1: is just part of your experience of the universe. Somehow,

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Speaker 1: over the centuries and millennia, we have been able to

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Speaker 1: piece together a picture of how the universe out there

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Speaker 1: might actually work, perhaps independent of our senses, though of

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Speaker 1: course we won't know until those aliens come and talk

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Speaker 1: to us about the colors they see in the universe.

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Speaker 2: Do you think they're a colored line too? Like Daniel,

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Speaker 2: we think the answer to the universe is a light

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Speaker 2: shade of lavender summer breeze. And then we would end

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Speaker 2: up disagreeing about what that means.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think whatever answer they have, my daughter will

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Speaker 1: disagree with him. That's how I raised her.

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Speaker 2: Let's not put her in the greeting committee.

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Speaker 1: I think we agree on that Oh my gosh. Yes,

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Speaker 1: let's not send Daniel's children to meet the aliens.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, unless they start an intergalactic war.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the colors are sacred to them, and if Hazel

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Speaker 1: disagrees about what's purple and what's red, she's going to

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Speaker 1: really piss them off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or they might disagree about the color hazel itself.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, exactly why are.

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Speaker 2: You called hazel if you're not the color of a

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Speaker 2: hazel nut. That's it. Forget this human race. It doesn't

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Speaker 2: make any sense.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense. You know, we named it

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Speaker 1: her hazel before we knew her. But she does turn

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Speaker 1: out to light the color hazel and hazel nuts, so

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Speaker 1: there's a win.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but how do you know she's actually seen the

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Speaker 2: color Hazel's hazel blind?

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Speaker 1: M hazel blind.

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Speaker 2: Wow, it's all hazey to her, it is.

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Speaker 1: But we are fascinated by this concept of color, not

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Speaker 1: just because it's such a visceral part of our experience,

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Speaker 1: but because it's deeply connected to the physics of what's

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Speaker 1: happening out there in the universe. It tells us something

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Speaker 1: about how photons are wiggling, or how neutrinos are flying

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Speaker 1: through the universe if you're willing to apply red and

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Speaker 1: blue shifts to them as well. So this concept of color,

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Speaker 1: what we see, what's out there in the universe, it's

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Speaker 1: very confusing but also very illuminating about how the universe

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Speaker 1: actually works.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of physics in light and in

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Speaker 2: all the colors. But then, as you said, it gets

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Speaker 2: filtered through our eyes and our brains, and sometimes what

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Speaker 2: we see is not quite what's out there, and maybe

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Speaker 2: there might be things out there that are maybe impossible

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Speaker 2: for us to experience.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's right. We know that there are frequencies of

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Speaker 1: light the humans can never experience, but are there also

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Speaker 1: colors that are impossible to see?

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Speaker 2: So to the end podcast, we'll be tackling the question

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Speaker 2: what is an impossible color?

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Speaker 1: It sounds like a job for Tom Cruise.

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Speaker 2: Dunt dunt dan da dunt dun.

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Speaker 1: This color will self destruct after you view it.

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Speaker 2: We need a movie in which Tom Cruise is a physicist. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean he'd have to wear a lot of like

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Speaker 2: wigs and prosthetics. Of course, he can't look like Tom Cruise.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's too sexy to be a physicist. Is that

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Speaker 1: what you're saying? I didn't say that he violates some

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Speaker 1: physical law.

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Speaker 2: He's too orange.

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Speaker 1: He's definitely very physical, even if he's not a physicist,

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Speaker 1: Right he doesn't.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I wonder if he would do

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Speaker 2: his own stunts in a physics movie, Like would you

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Speaker 2: actually sit on the couch all day? I mean, that's

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Speaker 2: it's probably more dangerous and jumping off a cliff.

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Speaker 1: Then you put all those professional nap stunters out of work.

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Speaker 1: You can just take naps on film as a wait.

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Speaker 2: Wait, wait, that's a career. I can be a stunt

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Speaker 2: napper exactly.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, there's a career for everything.

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Speaker 2: They're doing it all this time for free. Daniel.

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Speaker 1: You know that the sign of an advanced civilization is specialization, right,

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Speaker 1: And I think once we've achieved stunt napping, we've reached

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Speaker 1: the pinnacle of civilizations. The aliens will be impressed.

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Speaker 2: Oh, they might even hire us to nap for them.

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Speaker 1: Well there's a.

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Speaker 2: Twist ending, but yeah, this is an interesting question, the

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Speaker 2: idea that there might be colors out there that are

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Speaker 2: impossible to create, to experience, to see, to generate what

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Speaker 2: side of the color spectrum.

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Speaker 1: Are we Yeah, it's a complicated question. Because color is

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Speaker 1: intimately connected with frequency, and we think about it as

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Speaker 1: controlled by light, but really it's something inside our minds,

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Speaker 1: it's something generated by our brain. It's an experience, and

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Speaker 1: the colors you experience in the end come from the

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Speaker 1: signals that travel up the optic nerve, which are not physical.

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Speaker 1: They're just interpreted by your brain. And so it's interesting

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Speaker 1: to think about whether there are colors that cannot be

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Speaker 1: described by those signals.

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Speaker 2: Oh boy, is this going to get into philosophy, Daniel, Like,

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Speaker 2: what colors can a bat see?

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Speaker 1: That's actually a great idea for paper. I'm gonna write

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Speaker 1: that when we're done with this episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, what color is your bad wing?

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Speaker 1: Everything in the end is philosophy if you care about

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Speaker 1: what it means. Right, So if you're going to answer

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Speaker 1: the question what does that mean anyway? Then yeah, you're

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Speaker 1: getting into philosophy.

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Speaker 2: That sounds like a philosophical statement in itself, Daniel.

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Speaker 1: The philosophy of philosophy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you can get a phphphd in recursive philosophy in

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Speaker 2: computer science philosophical puzzles well, as usually. We were wondering

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Speaker 2: how many people had thought about this question of what

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Speaker 2: is an impossible color, and so as usual, Daniel went

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Speaker 2: out there to the Internet to ask people this question.

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Speaker 1: Thanks very much to everybody who answers these questions for

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Speaker 1: the podcast. If you would like to hear your voice

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Speaker 1: on future episodes, please write to me two questions at

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Speaker 1: danielan Jorge dot com.

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Speaker 2: So think about it for a second. What do you

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Speaker 2: think is an impossible color? Here's what people had to say.

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Speaker 4: So, color is just a construct of our brain decoding

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Speaker 4: the frequency of electiation. If you think about it and

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Speaker 4: imagine our rods and cones were tuned a little wider

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Speaker 4: and we could actually see an infrared and ultraviolet, and

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Speaker 4: colors we can't see would be associated with those frequencies.

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Speaker 4: So I guess every color associated with low frequency radio

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Speaker 4: all the way to gamma rays would be impossible colors.

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Speaker 3: If color is just how we perceive different wavelengths of light,

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Speaker 3: and light can be in a huge range of wavelengths.

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Speaker 3: It has something to do with the limits of the

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Speaker 3: wavelength approaching either zero or infinity, where suddenly color doesn't

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Speaker 3: make any sense anymore.

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Speaker 5: An impossible color all very interesting. I'm going to say

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Speaker 5: some sort of combination of spectral outputs that are that

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Speaker 5: is a different spectral resolution than what our the receptors

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Speaker 5: of our eyes are able to something to do with

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Speaker 5: color metamerism.

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Speaker 2: The interesting answers. I feel like nobody pitched the idea

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Speaker 2: that maybe it's a color that's made out of plant based.

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Speaker 1: Proteins vegan colors.

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Speaker 2: Wow, yes, No, no animals or creatures were harmed in

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Speaker 2: the making of this color.

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Speaker 1: I can't even imagine a way you might harm an

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Speaker 1: animal to make a color you're talking about, like, oh,

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Speaker 1: let's see red, We're going to spill something's blood. Like

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Speaker 1: it seems pretty unnecessary.

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Speaker 2: I think, Daniel, you just don't have this strong enough imagination.

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Speaker 2: But there are colors that are based on or traditionally

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Speaker 2: there are dyes that are based on like insects, like

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Speaker 2: insect juice.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, interesting, But.

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Speaker 2: I don't know how vegans draw that line.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're gonna have to have some of them

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Speaker 1: on the podcast to answer the question.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds like good question for Katie. All right, well,

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Speaker 2: let's dig into this question of what an impossible color is.

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Speaker 2: Whether it means we can't see it, we can't make it,

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Speaker 2: it can't exist in the universe. Let's figure it out.

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Speaker 2: So you know, what are the basics of light and color?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's start outside the human brain before we

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Speaker 1: get into like signal processing and all that stuff, and

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Speaker 1: just begin with light. Right, Light we know is made

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Speaker 1: of electromagnetic fields. There are ripples in electromagnetic fields, So

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Speaker 1: we have electrical fields that can be made by like

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Speaker 1: electrons and magnetic fields that have made my magnets. And

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Speaker 1: light is a coupling of the electric fields and the

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Speaker 1: magnetic fields together. Electric fields can induce magnetic fields, magnetic

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Speaker 1: fields can induce electric fields. Light is like this perfect

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Speaker 1: little packet where it's slashing back and forth between electric

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Speaker 1: fields and magnetic fields in amazing harmony, and they can

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Speaker 1: propagate through the universe, this little oscillation of the fields.

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Speaker 1: And these oscillations have frequencies that have a wavelength, they

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Speaker 1: have a frequency that relates to their energy. So if

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Speaker 1: you have a beam of light, for example, coming out

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Speaker 1: of a flashlight, it's actually made out of little photons,

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Speaker 1: and each photon has a specific energy which has a

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Speaker 1: specific wavelength and a specific frequency. So that's what light is, right,

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Speaker 1: these packets of photons.

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Speaker 2: So I have this laser and I'm shooting it, and

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Speaker 2: there are photons coming out of it, and each photon

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Speaker 2: is like a wiggle in the electromagnetic field. Is that

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Speaker 2: what it is?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, each photon is a wiggle in the electromagnetic field.

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Speaker 2: But it's not a wiggle that's like propagating, like if

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Speaker 2: I throw a pebble in a pond. It's not spreading

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Speaker 2: out there like that, right, Like in a laser. These

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Speaker 2: things are going in a straight line.

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Speaker 1: These things are going in a straight line. And we

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Speaker 1: just did a really fun but very confusing episode about

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Speaker 1: how long is the photon? And if you didn't listen

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Speaker 1: to that one, I.

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Speaker 2: Was going to listen to it, but it's a little long.

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Speaker 2: I'm not a light topic.

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Speaker 1: And that tells you that real photons out there in

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Speaker 1: the universe are a little packets. They have a length

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Speaker 1: that's determined by the spread of the frequency. So in

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Speaker 1: a sort of idealized sense, you can imagine every photon

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Speaker 1: has exactly one frequency. It's like a pure little packet

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Speaker 1: of one energy, one wavelength, one frequency. But that's actually

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Speaker 1: mathematically very confusing because if it was like that, it

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Speaker 1: would be everywhere in the universe. And so to build

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Speaker 1: up a little packet that actually moves through the universe

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Speaker 1: a little blob that stays together and flies through space.

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Speaker 1: You have to have a little bundle of frequencies, so

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Speaker 1: you know, blue photon is like a little spread of

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Speaker 1: various blue frequencies, and a red photon is a little

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Speaker 1: packet of a handful of differently red frequencies.

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Speaker 2: And they're all going at the same speed, which is

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Speaker 2: the speed of light.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, they all got the same speed even though

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Speaker 1: they have a different wavelength and a different frequency, and

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Speaker 1: the speed of light is the same across the spectrum.

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Speaker 1: That's at least in our current theory. There are theories

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Speaker 1: of physics like rainbow gravity, where different frequencies travel at

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Speaker 1: different speeds and you get like effects around the edges

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Speaker 1: of black holes, but are in their current theory physics,

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Speaker 1: And according to all of our measurements, every photon travels

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Speaker 1: at the same.

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Speaker 2: Speed, and the spectrum of frequencies that light can have,

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Speaker 2: it's basically one dimensional, right, Like there's only one knob

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Speaker 2: for the frequency of light.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're going to think about a photon.

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Speaker 2: From zero to infinity, hmm, But it's just a line,

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Speaker 2: and if you were to draw a plot of it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, it's one dimensional. It's a great way to

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Speaker 1: think about it. And it is infinitely dense, right, there's

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Speaker 1: an infinite number of frequencies there. We think of these

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Speaker 1: things as like, oh, they're quantum mechanical, so it must

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Speaker 1: be discrete, must be broken up into chunks, right, But

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Speaker 1: the reality is that free objects, even free electrons, are

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Speaker 1: not quantized in their energy levels. They're quantized in the

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Speaker 1: number of photons. Like you can't have one point seven

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Speaker 1: photons or two point two seven photons. You can have

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Speaker 1: one or two or nineteen. But each photon can have

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Speaker 1: any energy. There's no limitation, there's no quantitization, there's no

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Speaker 1: descritization of the energy spectrum. But yes, it is one

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Speaker 1: dimension all.

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Speaker 2: That you know of though, right, Like, is it possible

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Speaker 2: that maybe frequency is quantized as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in our current theory that's the case. There are

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Speaker 1: theories of quantum gravity in which like space is pixelated,

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Speaker 1: which would make like a minimum wavelength, and in that

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Speaker 1: case every distance is quantized. In our current theories, there's

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Speaker 1: no minimum frequency, but that doesn't actually really make sense

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Speaker 1: below like the plank length, where every photon would like

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Speaker 1: collapse into a black hole anyway, So it only really

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Speaker 1: applies up to a very very high energy, but much

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Speaker 1: higher than we could probe today.

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Speaker 2: All right, So that's the physics of it. Now let's

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Speaker 2: get into the biology of it. So when these photons

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Speaker 2: hit our eyes, they create and experience in our brains.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's one step before that, which is reflection. Like,

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Speaker 1: let's imagine we're looking at a banana, right, why do

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Speaker 1: we see the banana as yellow? We see the banana

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Speaker 1: as yellow because white light hits the banana from the sun,

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Speaker 1: and then some of it is absorbed and some of

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Speaker 1: it is reflected. You start with almost every frequency of

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Speaker 1: light you can see the banana, But then the banana

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Speaker 1: has chemicals in it and atoms, and those atoms prefer

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Speaker 1: to absorb some colors and not absorb other colors. And

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Speaker 1: so when you see yellow as banana, that means that

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Speaker 1: the wavelength of light that is being reflected is a

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Speaker 1: specific band in this case, like between five hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventy and five hundred and eighty nanometers. So you see

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Speaker 1: something as red, it's not because it's like absorbing the

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Speaker 1: red light, right, It's because it's reflecting the red light

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Speaker 1: and absorbing everything else. But then yeah, it hits your eyeball,

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Speaker 1: and those photons with a certain frequency are now going

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Speaker 1: to be interacted with by your eye, which is like

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Speaker 1: basically little observational device.

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Speaker 2: But wait, the banana, So the banana absorbs all frequencies

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Speaker 2: except maybe the kinds that are my brain will interpret

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Speaker 2: as yellow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, not all frequencies, but all visible ones. Right, banana

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Speaker 1: can't necessarily absorb all X rays and gamma rays or infrared,

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Speaker 1: but in the visible spectrum and again, and not even

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Speaker 1: all of that, right, Like you see it yellow because

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Speaker 1: it's dominant in the yellow. It's never like intense and

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Speaker 1: yellow and zero in every other frequency. You know, it just.

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Speaker 2: Peaks unless it's like a perfect banana. Like, is it

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Speaker 2: possible to create a perfect banana that only reflects like

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Speaker 2: one frequency of yellow.

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Speaker 1: If you make a shade which only reflects one frequency

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Speaker 1: of yellow, I think Hazel would call that perfect banana.

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Speaker 1: That is a nice name for a yellow.

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Speaker 2: Exact banana, yes.

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Speaker 1: Exact scientific banana.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So there's a reflection and also I mean there's

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Speaker 2: filtering too. But while we're talking about it, like it right,

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Speaker 2: like if I have rose colored glasses, the world looks

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Speaker 2: rose to me. Because it's filtering out all frequencies except

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Speaker 2: the ones that I see is rose.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it's filtering. There's a reflection. All this affects

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Speaker 1: the frequencies that actually hit your eyeball. But I hear

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Speaker 1: a lot of confusion out there and the questions I

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Speaker 1: get from listeners about what makes something a color, whether

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Speaker 1: it's absorbing it or reflecting it, And so it's important

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Speaker 1: to remember that the color is something that's in your

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Speaker 1: eye depends on the light that hits your eyeball. You

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Speaker 1: can only see something if it hits your eyeball. For example,

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Speaker 1: if a photon was flying in front of you your face,

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Speaker 1: you couldn't see it right. If it just flies past you,

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Speaker 1: you don't see like a little glowing blob going through

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Speaker 1: the universe. You imagine your visual perception is giving you

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Speaker 1: an accurate description of everything that's out there in the universe,

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Speaker 1: but you only see things that hit your eyeball. Photon

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Speaker 1: that passes in front of you doesn't send any signals

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Speaker 1: to you, so you don't see it right.

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Speaker 2: Like if someone to my right shoots a laser to

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Speaker 2: my left, I won't see it. It has to be

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Speaker 2: they have to be shooting into my eye for me

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Speaker 2: to see the.

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Speaker 1: Laser, yeah, or it has to hit dust particles along

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Speaker 1: the way or air and ionize that and make a

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Speaker 1: glow or a reflection. Right, But a perfect laser in

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Speaker 1: a vacuum you will not see until it slices your

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Speaker 1: head open.

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Speaker 2: The photons, ever, split into other photons.

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Speaker 1: Photons can convert into electron positron pairs, which can then

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Speaker 1: interact with other stuff, like including other photons, and do

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Speaker 1: crazy stuff that differently could happen, and those could create

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Speaker 1: other photons, So that can happen, but it's quantum mechanically

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Speaker 1: pretty rare. If you pass a photon through a special

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Speaker 1: kind of non linear crystal, it can split into two

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Speaker 1: other photons. They use that for important experiments to like

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Speaker 1: detect single photons. But mostly photons just fly through the universe.

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Speaker 1: That's why we can see them after billions of years

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Speaker 1: and across billions of light years. They're pretty reliable indicators

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Speaker 1: of what emitted them.

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Speaker 2: All right, So photons can't have all these frequencies. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: they get filtered, or when they bounce off the things

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Speaker 2: they get some of them make it out of the

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Speaker 2: bounds and they sometimes hit our eyes, and then that's

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Speaker 2: our experience of seeing things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and also our eyeballs do some filtering, right

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Speaker 1: to be experienced, the photon has to make it into

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Speaker 1: the pupil and then through the lens and then all

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Speaker 1: the way to the back of the retina where it

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Speaker 1: can actually be interacted with. That's where there are these

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Speaker 1: proteins which either turn on or turn off based on

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Speaker 1: the frequency of light. So you have these like array

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Speaker 1: of sensors in the back of your eyeballs which can

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Speaker 1: detect photons.

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Speaker 2: Did you look into how that works? Like there's a

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Speaker 2: molecule on the surface of the receptor there and then

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Speaker 2: it just gets activated and it wiggles, and then how

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Speaker 2: does that? Does it release a chemical or does it

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Speaker 2: create an action potential? How does it work?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually really amazing. It's like a little machine

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Speaker 1: and it actually changes the protein's configuration when it absorbs

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Speaker 1: the photon. It flips like almost a physical switch on

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Speaker 1: this chemical to change its configuration and that adds energy

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Speaker 1: to it and then that's picked up by the optic nerve.

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Speaker 1: It's really kind of amazing chemistry. And you have these things.

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Speaker 1: They're scattered all over the back of your eye. Of course,

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Speaker 1: people know there's two different kinds. There's rods, which basically

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Speaker 1: give you black and white vision. They're sensitive across the spectrum.

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Speaker 2: Wall what does that mean, Like any photon of any

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Speaker 2: frequency will activate them or not.

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Speaker 1: It's not exactly flat across the spectrum. But essentially, yes,

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Speaker 1: they're not very frequency specific, they're not choosy. They're very

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Speaker 1: very sensitive. Yeah, they're not choosy, but they're very good

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Speaker 1: at picking out photons. They're much better than the cones.

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Speaker 1: So they're good for like at night, is there a

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Speaker 1: predator there or not? You don't really care if to

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Speaker 1: red or green. You just want to know if it's

442
00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:02,800
Speaker 1: something there.

443
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:07,080
Speaker 2: Basically gives the sense of like brightness or darkness.

444
00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:09,359
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, it's like black versus white. But then you

445
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:12,240
Speaker 1: have these other sensors, these cones. There's three different kinds

446
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:14,399
Speaker 1: of them. You have like six or seven million in

447
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:16,879
Speaker 1: the back of each eyeball, and most of them are

448
00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:20,640
Speaker 1: actually concentrated in a tiny little spot in the retina

449
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:23,199
Speaker 1: near the center of your vision. So you have like

450
00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:26,320
Speaker 1: color vision near the center of your eyeball, but mostly

451
00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:29,320
Speaker 1: black and white in the rest, which is fascinating and

452
00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:32,520
Speaker 1: each of these cones responds to a different frequency of light,

453
00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:34,199
Speaker 1: so it has like a protein on it, and a

454
00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:37,040
Speaker 1: different protein for each kind. You have three different kinds,

455
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:40,320
Speaker 1: and those proteins are tuned to flip or to not

456
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:43,520
Speaker 1: flip for different frequencies of light. So one of them

457
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:46,959
Speaker 1: mostly flips on for blue light, another one mostly flips

458
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:50,440
Speaker 1: on for green, another one flips on for like yellowish red.

459
00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:54,119
Speaker 2: Light, and it so did they sort of ignore the

460
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:55,240
Speaker 2: other frequencies.

461
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,920
Speaker 1: They don't exactly ignore them, right, They're not in very

462
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:01,119
Speaker 1: narrow bands. So one of them does peak in the blue,

463
00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:03,159
Speaker 1: and one peaks in the green, and one peaks in

464
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 1: the red. If you imagine, like, what's the probability for

465
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 1: this protein to flip based on the frequency of light, Well,

466
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:11,480
Speaker 1: the blue one will almost always flip for a blue one,

467
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,800
Speaker 1: but it'll sometimes flip for a green one, though not

468
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:16,520
Speaker 1: as reliably. And the red one will always flip for

469
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 1: a red one, and sometimes for a green one, and

470
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:21,160
Speaker 1: occasionally even for a blue one. So they're a little

471
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,360
Speaker 1: bit overlapping. They're not like perfect bands.

472
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:26,200
Speaker 2: Right, They're fuzzy. They can each will react to a

473
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:29,480
Speaker 2: certain range of frequencies where those freagancies are centered. It

474
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:31,440
Speaker 2: kind of depends on the type of cone.

475
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:33,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so you have three of these, each

476
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:36,159
Speaker 1: of which are centered at different places in the spectrum.

477
00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:39,920
Speaker 1: And then what your brain does is interpret the signals

478
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:43,239
Speaker 1: from these cones to figure out, oh, how blue was it. So,

479
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:45,639
Speaker 1: for example, if you get a signal only from blue

480
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,440
Speaker 1: cones and nothing from the red and the green one,

481
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:50,639
Speaker 1: then you're like, Okay, that must have been pretty blue

482
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:53,359
Speaker 1: in order to signal the blue ones and not signal

483
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:55,920
Speaker 1: the other ones. But if you get something that signals

484
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:57,720
Speaker 1: the blue one and the green one and not the

485
00:22:57,760 --> 00:22:59,879
Speaker 1: red one, then you're like, okay, it was blue green.

486
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:02,679
Speaker 1: And so you can sort of triangulate where it is

487
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 1: on the spectrum by the ratios of how these things react.

488
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:10,159
Speaker 2: Interesting. All right, Well let's get to this idea that

489
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:13,119
Speaker 2: maybe there are colors that are impossible for us to

490
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 2: see even with our rods and cones. So let's dig

491
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 2: into that. But first let's take a quick break. All right,

492
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 2: we're talking about color today, hopefully not getting too off color.

493
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 1: Depends on if you think philosophy is off color or not.

494
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 1: What is the color of philosophy?

495
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:43,200
Speaker 2: WHOA, Well, that's getting a little purple there.

496
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to ask a lavender question.

497
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 2: Well you don't have to yellow it, Daniel. All right, Well,

498
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:55,199
Speaker 2: we're talking about how we experience light, and so we

499
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 2: know that light are photons. They come in different frequencies.

500
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:03,119
Speaker 2: There are frequencies from here to infinity. But our eyes

501
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:07,400
Speaker 2: have these sensors that can detect photons around certain frequencies,

502
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 2: and those are the ones that generally we would associate

503
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,440
Speaker 2: as red, green, and blue rightb RGB.

504
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:17,880
Speaker 1: And it's fascinating that here we've transformed, as you said,

505
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: an infinite one dimensional spectrum. Photons could be anywhere along

506
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 1: the spectrum. So now sort of this three D spectrum

507
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:28,639
Speaker 1: RGB right, and the color that we perceive depends in

508
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: principle on the photon, but really it depends on the

509
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: signals from these neurons, which is in this three D

510
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: space of red, green, or blue. You get these signals

511
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,400
Speaker 1: from these neurons, and once you experience is in your mind,

512
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:44,919
Speaker 1: it is just an interpretation of this point in this

513
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: three dimensional RGB space.

514
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 2: I guess maybe a question you could ask is like,

515
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 2: why are we doing it this way? Why are we

516
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:53,920
Speaker 2: seeing the world this way? Why don't we just why

517
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 2: didn't evolution come up with this answer that can just

518
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 2: tell you what the frequency of light is.

519
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:00,919
Speaker 1: That's fascinating question. And there are some close based on

520
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: the variety of the way the color perception works in

521
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom, Like we know that we have these

522
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,640
Speaker 1: three sensors, but there's nothing special about three. Like people

523
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: think of RGB as the fundamental basis of color, but

524
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 1: it's just so the way the human eye works. There

525
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: are critters out there with like eleven different sensors. The

526
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 1: mantis shrimp, I think has like fourteen, and there are

527
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:24,119
Speaker 1: and there are species out there that can see a

528
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 1: broader range or a narrower range of colors, just depends

529
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,199
Speaker 1: on what's more efficient. The fascinating thing is that the

530
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: more sensors you have, the better you are typically of

531
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 1: being able to tell the difference between shades. So if

532
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: you like really need to know the difference between dark

533
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: green and light green, you might evolve more sensors or

534
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: more sort of like processing power to be able to

535
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: distinguish these signals.

536
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess the more sensors you have, like kind

537
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 2: of like posts you put in the frequency spectrum, the

538
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 2: more you can tell things apart.

539
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: Sometimes, like the mantis shrimp is famous for having like

540
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: fourteen different sensors. You might think, wow, they must see

541
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: the world in really vivid color, but they have very

542
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: very few neurons to back it up behind that, so

543
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: it's like they have really really good hardware but terrible software.

544
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: So they might actually not experience more colors than we do,

545
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 1: like the actual experience of a Manti strip. Who can

546
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: never know right until we write that paper. But I

547
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 1: think it takes both complex hardware and complex software to

548
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:25,199
Speaker 1: experience a broad variety of colors.

549
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 2: I'm sure those fourteen centers are doing something right, like

550
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 2: it's letting it discriminate a certain specific colors or certain

551
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:35,639
Speaker 2: specific patterns. But maybe after that, it's just not like

552
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 2: the man district is not appreciating the color.

553
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: It depends a lot on the processing, right. You get

554
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: these signals if you have very crude responses to them,

555
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 1: very crude like neural networks behind them to help you

556
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: know how to respond to them, very wide bins in

557
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: your response, for example, you could be wasting a lot

558
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: of that information.

559
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 2: You know.

560
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 1: Imagine you have like a super excellent microphone and then a

561
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: terrible cable to store it in very low fidelity file

562
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: format could be very lossy. This is all very very speculative,

563
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: of course, and there's experiments going on to try to

564
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: understand what mentis shrimp experience. But there are some humans

565
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 1: that have more than three cones. They're called tetra worlds. Yeah,

566
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:21,239
Speaker 1: like mutants, Yes, mutants exactly, But there are people have

567
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 1: four different kinds of cones. When I first heard of that,

568
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,679
Speaker 1: I thought, WHOA, they must have a fourth color.

569
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,199
Speaker 2: How does that happen? Like they have a mutation that

570
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 2: produces a whole different fourth kind of cone.

571
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're very rare. Then you can spot them, not

572
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: because they see a different color we think. It's not

573
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 1: like there's a fourth color that adds to RGB that

574
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: they can experience that we can't. It's just that they

575
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 1: tend to be better discriminating between colors, so like they

576
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: might pass a color blindness test that the rest of

577
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: us would fail. If you put like a really really

578
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 1: subtle difference between the greens and the blues, for example,

579
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: they might pick something out that other people can't.

580
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 2: You put like a Stamp athlete next to a Harvard athlete,

581
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 2: and you'd ask them like which one is which You'd

582
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:07,400
Speaker 2: be like, wait, what, they're the same? They just look red.

583
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 2: But you know, maybe a more discerning person might say,

584
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 2: oh no, that's a crimson, and then the other one's

585
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 2: like a wine red.

586
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:17,199
Speaker 1: Junior college red. Yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah, way to come

587
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: up with an example that's really relatable, I'm suing a

588
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 1: lot of people have really struggled with their things.

589
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 2: I mean, if you put a banana slug next one

590
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 2: and eater, is it the same yellow or not?

591
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: You know, that's actually a really fun question because all

592
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: the University of California campuses are blue and gold, but

593
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: they all have different shades of gold.

594
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 2: Now, which one is more relatable? To exclude people who

595
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: don't live in California, or to exclude people who've never

596
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 2: heard of Stanford and Harvard?

597
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. Let's hear from the listeners.

598
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 2: They're gonna be like, you excluded everyone.

599
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: Anyway. It's fascinating because the biological transformation of these photons

600
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: into optic signals puts us sort of like a distance

601
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 1: from the actual photon. Like what you're experiencing in your

602
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: mind is reaction to the optic nerve signals, not the

603
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: photon directly.

604
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 2: Well, it lands in your cone and then the cone

605
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 2: generates the signal that then gets transmitted to your brain.

606
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly what you mean. But you could simulate that

607
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: signal without the photon, right, You create that same signal

608
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: the optic nerve somehow without the photon, sort of the

609
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: matrix style. You can experience that color without a photon,

610
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: of that energy actually arriving on your optic nerve, and

611
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: it tells you that. Like we say, photons have color,

612
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: we call them red photons or blue photons, but that's

613
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: not really accurate. The photons themselves don't have a color.

614
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: The color is in your mind. The photons have an energy,

615
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: to have a frequency, to have a wavelength. The color

616
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: is just like your experience of the photon.

617
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's our brains trying to figure out

618
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 2: what that frequency is. It just that we came up

619
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 2: with a name for things like, oh, that's thirty point seven.

620
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 2: Her have a prequancy light. We will call that yellow.

621
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 2: Why not because we don't have decimal numbers back in

622
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: the day.

623
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: It's our brain trying to give us what it thinks

624
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: is a useful experience or what evolution has proven to

625
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: be a useful experience, the way that, like touching something

626
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: hot gives you a painful experience, turns out to be useful.

627
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: Having these different experiences in your mind for these different

628
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: bands of frequencies turns out to be useful. But what's

629
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 1: fascinating is a sort of philosophical question of like, where

630
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: do these experiences themselves come from? And are they the same?

631
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: You know, you put two people in black and white

632
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: rooms and raise them without color and describe colors to them.

633
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: Could they come out of that room and identify red

634
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: versus blue versus green? Or is it purely captured in

635
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: the innate experience and can never be described in any

636
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: other terms. There are fascinating philosophical questions.

637
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 2: I think it has been proven our brains have evolved to

638
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 2: react to certain colors in certain ways, right, Like green

639
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 2: usually has a calming effect, Red has a certain sort

640
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 2: of anxiety raising effect. Right is that kind of what

641
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 2: you mean, like our brains are cute to react to

642
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 2: startain colors or what.

643
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with those studies, though imagine it's probably

644
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: is true that there are emotional responses to various colors.

645
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: But I mean, like the actual experience of the color,

646
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: Like the red that you feel in your mind is

647
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: just an experience in your mind the way pain is right,

648
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: Pain is like a reaction to heat, to damage, to temperature.

649
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: Red is a reaction to certain frequencies of light hitting you.

650
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: But the light itself is not red, the way that,

651
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 1: like the heat from the burner, is not actually literally painful.

652
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 1: The pain is part of your experience of it.

653
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess, But I feel like maybe we're

654
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 2: sort of maybe confusing things by trying to get to philosophical.

655
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 2: It's basically just your brain trying to detect what's happening

656
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 2: in the world, right, Yeah.

657
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: It's your brain's interpretation of these signals. And you're right,

658
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: Getting philosophical does always confuse things because you end up

659
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: with questions you can't answer and you don't know if

660
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:56,479
Speaker 1: they actually tat you anything.

661
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 2: So then let's get back to this topic of it.

662
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 2: Maybe that there's a color that it's impossible for us

663
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 2: to see or to make we're both.

664
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. A few decades ago a theory developed about how

665
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: we experience color. It's actually slightly more complicated and actually

666
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 1: slightly simpler than what we just described. Instead of imagining

667
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: that you get like three signals red, green, and blue

668
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: actually the way.

669
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 2: That but I guess maybe just from a very basic

670
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 2: level of course, our colors we can see, like we

671
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 2: can't see light up up on the infrared, and we

672
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 2: can't see light down or up in the ultraviolet. Right, Like,

673
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 2: there's a whole range of light frequencies, infinite range of

674
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 2: light frequencies that were our eyes just don't detect, Like

675
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 2: they just go through our eyes or they hit our

676
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 2: eyes and don't activate it.

677
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, absolutely, there are lots of frequencies of light

678
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: that don't generate in the signal. I don't know if

679
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: those frequencies of light have a color though, right, color

680
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: is just our experience, and so you just don't assign

681
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: a color to those frequencies. So there are frequencies we

682
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: cannot see. I don't know if those frequencies have color.

683
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 2: What would you call a color?

684
00:32:59,040 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 4: Was it?

685
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 2: Like if we have like a visual spectrum, right, Like,

686
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 2: there's a range of frequencies that our eyes can detect,

687
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 2: and so let's call color the light that is within

688
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 2: that range, the frequency of the light within that range.

689
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say color is our response to frequencies

690
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: of light within that range.

691
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean that sounds like an arbitrary definition. I

692
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 2: could also just posit colors the frequency of the light

693
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 2: that we can see, so.

694
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: That all works really well. If you think about individual

695
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: frequencies of light, it all makes sense. But you know,

696
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 1: we never see individual frequencies. You always see a mixture.

697
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: You see a little bit of this frequency, a little

698
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: bit of that frequency. And once we start thinking about

699
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: mixtures of frequencies, things get more complicated. And actually a

700
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: different theory of how we experience color emerged a few

701
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: decades ago. It's called opposing neuron theory. It says, instead

702
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: of having like a three dimensional space RGB red, green,

703
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: and blue one for each of these different kinds of cones,

704
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: actually we only really have two because we have opposing neurons.

705
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: That we have neus the fire more when light is

706
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: red and less when it's green. And we have another one,

707
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: a blue versus yellow one that fires more when things

708
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: are yellow and less when things are blue. So instead

709
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: of happening like three dimensional information, our nerves have figured

710
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: out a way to incorporate this in just two dimensions,

711
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: like a green versus red axis and a blue versus

712
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,720
Speaker 1: yellow axis. It's still pulled out of the same cones,

713
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit of processing there to like

714
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:29,320
Speaker 1: convert it into this red versus green and blue versus yellow.

715
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 2: I think you're talking about what happens after it hits

716
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 2: your optic nerve and maybe after it goes up into

717
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 2: your like visual cortex, right, you're talking about like, you know,

718
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 2: maybe your brain or evolution said, you know, maybe we

719
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 2: don't need three signals to figure out what color thing

720
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 2: the banana is or whether that's a spotted leopard or not. Like,

721
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 2: maybe we can just instead of having three variables, maybe

722
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 2: we can just do with two variables, and maybe that's

723
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:55,720
Speaker 2: more efficient and faster and just enough to survive.

724
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I'm not exactly sure where this happens, and

725
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: you know where the brain technically ends and the optic

726
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: nerve begins. But yeah, this is part of the processing

727
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: that happens in your brain. This is opposing neuron theory,

728
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: and that means something really interesting because it means there's

729
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: a little bit of a loss of information, and it

730
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 1: means that there are some colors which now cannot be

731
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:20,280
Speaker 1: described in this two dimensional plane. For example, a mixture

732
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:23,760
Speaker 1: of green and red. You have this one opposing neuron

733
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: which is supposed to fire more if it's red and

734
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: less if it's green. What does it do if you

735
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:32,479
Speaker 1: send it red and green? Right? Does it fire more

736
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 1: for the red and fire less for the green. It's

737
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: an ore system. It can tell you whether this light

738
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,839
Speaker 1: is red or is green. There's no response that that

739
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: neuron can make that says I see red and green.

740
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 2: Wouldn't it fire like somewhere in between? Like neurons and

741
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 2: code things by the frequency at which they, you know,

742
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 2: send signals, right, like little like Morse codes. So if

743
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 2: it's like doing red and for green, wouldn't like a

744
00:35:57,680 --> 00:35:59,280
Speaker 2: mixture give you something in between?

745
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 1: You can see a color that's between red and green,

746
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: But you can't see like intense red and green simultaneously.

747
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 2: Oh, you're talking about the intensity of things, not like

748
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:09,240
Speaker 2: which frequencies are present.

749
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: It's also true if this is fairly dim. But what

750
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: you can see is a color between red and green. Right,

751
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: If you see like something on the spectrum that's between

752
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: red and green, it's like a yellow, then you can

753
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,319
Speaker 1: see that, and the response of the neuron will be

754
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 1: between its response for red and for green. If you

755
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 1: shine pure green and pure red on it. It's supposed

756
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:29,839
Speaker 1: to both trigger it and inhibit it, and it doesn't

757
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 1: know how to communicate that there's no place on its

758
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 1: response that means green and red.

759
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 2: Now, as you said, this is a theory, are there

760
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 2: experiments back it up? Or like, do we know where

761
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 2: in the brain this is happening.

762
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: We don't know where in the brain this is happening.

763
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 1: And there's a controversial set of experiments. People were like,

764
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: is it possible to see these things? What happens if

765
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: you put like strips of color near each other and

766
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 1: ask people to like focus on the line between them.

767
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:00,080
Speaker 1: So they have these experiments that did originally in the

768
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: eighties where they put like strips of blue and strips

769
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: of yellow next to each other, or strips of red

770
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: and strips of green next to each other, and ask like,

771
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 1: what do you experience right at the edge? You know,

772
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 1: where you're seeing like red and green at the same time.

773
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,840
Speaker 1: So there's this paper in eighties by these two guys,

774
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:19,839
Speaker 1: Crane and the Piantanita, and they claim to see these

775
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: impossible colors. They ask people to describe what color they

776
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 1: were seeing at the boundary, and it was like indescribable,

777
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 1: and so this paper was really controversial for a long time.

778
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: And then there were experiments two decades later at Dartmouth

779
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: in the mid two thousands that sort of disputed these

780
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: results and said, like, hmm, maybe people are just seeing

781
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 1: sort of like an intermediate color. They're not simultaneously experiencing

782
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 1: what happens when you have red and green photons. It's

783
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: just sort of like hard to describe. So this controversy

784
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: in the literature about whether this theory is right. There

785
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,399
Speaker 1: are other theories of how we experience color and whether

786
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 1: it's possible to see these colors in some way.

787
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,359
Speaker 2: So what do you mean by possible colors? You're talking

788
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 2: about like combinations of color that we can experience, Yeah, exactly,

789
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 2: that maybe our optic nerves are picking up because they're

790
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 2: definitely picking up something, but we just because of the

791
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 2: way that our brains have maybe streamlined and gotten rid

792
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 2: of certain information that doesn't think it needs now we

793
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 2: have kind of blind spots in the color spectrum.

794
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. And I read a really fascinating paper that

795
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: suggested you might be able to experience this if you

796
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:30,240
Speaker 1: can come up with a way to like differently trigger

797
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 1: different parts of your optic nerve. Like if you could

798
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: get some of these opposing neurons to respond to the

799
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: green light and some of them to respond to the

800
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: red light, then instead of all sending the same signal,

801
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: you'd have some sending the green signal and some sending

802
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: the red signal, both intensely, and then maybe your brain

803
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: would know how to interpret that, and we'd give you

804
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: this experience of this red green combination. That's one theory,

805
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: And people argue, like, maybe that's what was happening in

806
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: the eighty three experiments, that they somehow like parts of

807
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: it were triggering this part of your nerve and other

808
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 1: parts are experiencing other parts of the nerve. But yeah,

809
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: it's about these mixtures of colors that we can't see.

810
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:08,800
Speaker 1: We can see all the pure colors, but these mixtures

811
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:10,120
Speaker 1: of colors we can't see.

812
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 2: Well, I guess you would see them, you just wouldn't

813
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 2: be able to maybe tell them apart from some of

814
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:16,880
Speaker 2: the primary colors.

815
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: Perhaps this is novel color, which is a mixture of

816
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: these two which we do not have an experience of.

817
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: Because we think that the sensory mechanisms and the optical

818
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 1: nerve processing can't carry the information to describe it. The

819
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,040
Speaker 1: loss of information means there's no way to encode it

820
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: basically in those signals.

821
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 2: Now, do these impossible colors have a specific frequency or

822
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 2: would you call it a different color because it's a

823
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 2: mix of different frequencies.

824
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 1: Yeahs, see that's fascinating because we think about color as

825
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: associated with the frequency spectrum, right, and so pure frequencies

826
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: we think of as pure colors, and that makes sense.

827
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: But here we're talking about combinations of different frequencies, like

828
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:58,360
Speaker 1: shooting red and green photons or blue and yellow photons

829
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,359
Speaker 1: at you at the same time. And so that's why

830
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: I think it's helpful that separated the question of frequency

831
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 1: and color, because color is what you experience in your mind,

832
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: and it's not always connected to just one frequency. Like

833
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: this red green color, whatever it is, that would be

834
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: an experience in your mind, your brain's interpretation of seeing

835
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: both red frequency photons and green frequency photons at the

836
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: same time. You wouldn't experience red, you wouldn't experience green,

837
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 1: you'd experience some red green thing we don't have a

838
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 1: word for.

839
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 2: I guess it kind of goes back to the question

840
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,240
Speaker 2: of like what is yellow like If we have sensors

841
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,440
Speaker 2: that the tech red, blue, and green. What is yellow?

842
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you just think about the spectrum, right, yellow

843
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,720
Speaker 1: is the color that triggers the green and the red

844
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: about the same amount and doesn't trigger the blue.

845
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 2: Like there's a specific frequency that will do that, right,

846
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:51,800
Speaker 2: I imagine mm hmm. Now you could call that frequency yellow.

847
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 2: But you can also kind of fool the eye into

848
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 2: thinking of yellow by mixing frequencies. That's kind of what

849
00:40:57,760 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 2: your TV and your phone screen do.

850
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is specific frequency range that we know triggers

851
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: the experience of yellow in your minds five hundred and

852
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: seventy to five and eighty animeters. Absolutely, and you know

853
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: the same way that there's like a cyan and there's

854
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: a purple. You don't have a special cone for these things.

855
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 1: There are brain creating an experience for this whole range

856
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: of possible signals that it's getting.

857
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 2: Right, And you can sort of fold it into thinking

858
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 2: of yellow by mixing frequencies, right. I mean like in

859
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 2: your TV or your phone screen, there's only like three

860
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 2: kinds of LEDs in it, right, There's red, green, and

861
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 2: yellow ones. And so when you look at something yell

862
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 2: on your phone, it's not actually shooting yellow light, shooting

863
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,719
Speaker 2: some combination of red, blue, and green that's making your

864
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 2: brain think it's yellow. But there's also a frequency that

865
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,479
Speaker 2: wouldn't trigger that same Oh that's yellow. Anyways. The point

866
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: is that there are combinations of frequencies that maybe our

867
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 2: brains are not designed to like trigger your consciousness of them.

868
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. There should be a unique experience for those combinations,

869
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: but the brain has nobody interpret it because it doesn't

870
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: get a unique signal for those combinations. So we even

871
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: like developed a unique experience.

872
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,919
Speaker 2: It's like you're blind to those colors kind of mm hmm, yeah,

873
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 2: like it just looks red to you. You're like Stanford,

874
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:17,719
Speaker 2: Harvard the irvine. I don't know, mm, it could be

875
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 2: any athlete.

876
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 1: There's two other sort of ways to think about impossible

877
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,240
Speaker 1: colors as well. There are colors that can't be generated

878
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: by any physical source, and then there's these things they

879
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 1: called chimerical colors.

880
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,800
Speaker 2: Interesting. All right, let's get into those impossible to make

881
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 2: colors and dig into what that means. But first let's

882
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 2: take another quick break. Are we getting very colorful today?

883
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 2: Looking at all of the rainbow of ideas around the

884
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:59,799
Speaker 2: concept of color and how we perceive it, and what

885
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 2: is a color anyway, and what color is your been

886
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:03,839
Speaker 2: in it as well?

887
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: Hey that's a personal question, man.

888
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 2: WHOA Well, you just got really really purple there. I

889
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 2: wasn't even thinking about that. I see what's on your mind,

890
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,720
Speaker 2: Daniel m lunch. Oh that's even racier.

891
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: Let's steer back to physics.

892
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 2: But we talked about how maybe there are combinations the

893
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:28,320
Speaker 2: frequencies of light that we can't see, because really color

894
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 2: is our experience of how light hits her eye and

895
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 2: sometimes sets of specific frequency maybe that's sometimes that's a

896
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 2: combination or the absence of certain frequencies. So color is

897
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 2: a complicated thing. But there are maybe combinations of frequencies

898
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 2: that we our brains are just not equipped to deteg

899
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 2: unless maybe you're maybe trained to see them, or maybe

900
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 2: you're one of these people born with extra sensors.

901
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it could be. And in the end, we

902
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 1: don't know what other people experience. We can just ask

903
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: them to compare previous experience to current experience or to

904
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: some references, but we can't, you know, cross correlate across brains.

905
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: We don't know how to extract from inside the brain

906
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: the actual encoding of these things and interpret it in

907
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: any sort of objective way map from one brain to another.

908
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 1: In the end, it's frustrating, but we can try to

909
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 1: reverse engineer the system and think about ways to experience

910
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: like weird colors or things that we can't experience. That's

911
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. And the system, the way it works,

912
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,720
Speaker 1: because it has these overlapping responses, also creates these things

913
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: called imaginary colors, colors not that we can't experience, but

914
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: that no physical source could generate.

915
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,800
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think that's a question that I have

916
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 2: from the beginning. Are there colors that are impossible to make?

917
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:43,280
Speaker 2: But I guess to be clear, all colors are possible

918
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 2: in the universe, right, Like you can always stretch light

919
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 2: to be a certain color infinitely with infinite precision in

920
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 2: the universe.

921
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, all frequencies of light can exist out there

922
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: in the universe. But remember color is our experience in

923
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: the mind, and it's this interpretation of the the red, green,

924
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 1: and blue cones and then perhaps through these opposing neurons.

925
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 1: But because those things overlap, there's a question of like

926
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:10,800
Speaker 1: what would happen if you only triggered the green neuron

927
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:13,319
Speaker 1: right now, the green neuron and the red neuron are

928
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: almost overlapping. They're almost identical, Like there's a very small

929
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: shift between them. So any physical photon that hits your

930
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:23,360
Speaker 1: eyeball that triggers the green is very likely going to

931
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: trigger also some red ones. So you shoot like pure

932
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: green light at somebody's eyeball, some of those red cones

933
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: are also going to get triggered.

934
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 2: Right because I think what we said before is that

935
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 2: our cones are not perfect, right, Like, they don't just

936
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 2: respond to one frequency. They respond to a range of frequencies,

937
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 2: and in our eyes, those ranges kind of overlap, So

938
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 2: there are some frequencies that will activate both yes.

939
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: And the red and the green in particular are very

940
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: close to each other. They respond almost the same way

941
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: to different frequencies, and so like if you shoot something

942
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 1: right in the middle of the green, then the green

943
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 1: cone is always going to respond and the red cone

944
00:45:57,680 --> 00:45:59,480
Speaker 1: is going to respond. Like ninety percent of the time

945
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: was like further shifted down. But it makes you wonder,

946
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: like what would happen if you could somehow just tweak

947
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:08,759
Speaker 1: the cones. Don't worry about the light you're shooting at

948
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: it just somehow get only the green cone to respond

949
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 1: without the red cone responding.

950
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 2: Like what would happen in your brain?

951
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,719
Speaker 1: Yes, they call this hyper green, like the greeniest green

952
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: that you could experience without any pollution from the red.

953
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 1: In reality, it's essentially impossible to generate this using photons

954
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: because all these photons will also stimulate that red cone.

955
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 2: Oh you're talking about like it's an impossible experience of

956
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 2: that color.

957
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: We don't know that it's impossible. Like technically, if I

958
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 1: attached little electrodes to all the nerves behind the green

959
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 1: cones and stimulated them, then you would have this experience.

960
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 1: But I can't create a photon that would do the

961
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 1: same thing.

962
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:50,439
Speaker 2: You mean, like, you can't create a photon that will

963
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,359
Speaker 2: ignore the red cones, Yeah, and only hit the green

964
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 2: cone exactly. Well, less you could somehow aim them really well.

965
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, super precise lasers in the back of your

966
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: eye only hit those green cones. So it's possible, then, well,

967
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 1: we think it's possible for it to happen. It's just

968
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 1: that there isn't a physical source we could make that

969
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: can do that. Yes, but that's the experience of hyper green.

970
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 2: Right right, And it's probably the color of like mountain dew,

971
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 2: or like if you took a green highlighter and like

972
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 2: paint is sear the back of your eyeball.

973
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:26,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, so those are imaginary colors. Then there's another really

974
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: fun kind of color that you actually can experience.

975
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 2: But I mean it's not just green, right, and it's

976
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 2: like all of them right, Like, it's probably possible to

977
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 2: create a hyper blue or a hyper red.

978
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 3: Mm hm.

979
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:40,280
Speaker 1: It's trickier with green and red because those two response

980
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: curves are basically on top of each other, so it's

981
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 1: harder to separate. Blue is further away, so it's possible

982
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: to experience a purer blue than it is red or green.

983
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 1: But in principle, yes, these same things are true. Even

984
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: blue photons will stimulate a fraction of the green and

985
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:56,360
Speaker 1: red cones.

986
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 2: All right, So that's one kind of impossible color. You said,

987
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 2: there's another kind.

988
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: There's another category. These are called chimerical colors. These are

989
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,279
Speaker 1: colors you experience if you change the way that your

990
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 1: cones respond. Remember, these are little biological machines and they

991
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,319
Speaker 1: can sort of get tired. You know that if you

992
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:17,240
Speaker 1: look at a really bright light and then look away,

993
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 1: for example, you still see it, right, that's because your

994
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:23,359
Speaker 1: cones are tired and they're responding differently. Now there's something

995
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,240
Speaker 1: like residual effect there. So for example, if you stare

996
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:29,840
Speaker 1: at like really bright yellow light, it sort tires out

997
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: these opposing neurons. Then if you close your eye or

998
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: you look at something really really black, then you see

999
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 1: this blue response. There's no blue there. You're seeing a

1000
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:43,719
Speaker 1: reaction to tiring out your blue yellow neurons. And so

1001
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: what you see is this super dark blue, this blue

1002
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 1: that you otherwise could not experience because to experience it,

1003
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: you'd need to receive a bunch of blue photons and

1004
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:55,239
Speaker 1: that would make it brighter. So you see this like

1005
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: impossibly dark blue.

1006
00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 2: Whoa couldn't you just sit in a room and shoot

1007
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 2: blue photons at my eyeball?

1008
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: You could do that, but then receiving those photons would

1009
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 1: create an experience of a brighter blue, and if you

1010
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:09,800
Speaker 1: dial it down eventually you just wouldn't see anything. You

1011
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 1: just see black. So this is like a blue you

1012
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 1: can experience without receiving any photons.

1013
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 2: Right, because you're basically doing the same thing as these

1014
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 2: imaginary colors, right, you're sort of like knocking out your

1015
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 2: perception of certain rods and cones right exactly.

1016
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 1: And this is actually pretty easy to do. You just

1017
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: go to like Wikipedia and google chimerical colors. They have

1018
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 1: these templates, and you like staring a yellow dot and

1019
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:34,919
Speaker 1: then look at a black field and you can see

1020
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,319
Speaker 1: this blue which is different from just like a really

1021
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:40,240
Speaker 1: really dark blue. It's fascinating. It's called sticky and blue.

1022
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:43,480
Speaker 2: Whea, it's wild to think that, Like, if I'm just

1023
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 2: staring at something yellow, like my brain and my eyeballs

1024
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 2: and brains are constantly going yellow yellow, yellow, yell ye yellow,

1025
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:52,879
Speaker 2: and eventually just like I give up, forget it.

1026
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:57,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, then they're tired, and then the blue one's out right,

1027
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 1: and then they're sort of like leaning or they're biased

1028
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 1: against it. They're like exhausted, the yell the like, don't

1029
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,280
Speaker 1: show me any more yellow. We're leaning blue for a while,

1030
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 1: and they're basically sending you blue information even though there's

1031
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:11,719
Speaker 1: nothing there. And so because there's no brightness to it,

1032
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: but you're getting blue, your brain is like, well, I

1033
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:16,439
Speaker 1: got to give you something blue, but there's no brightness there,

1034
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: So what do we do. Let's make the darkest blue

1035
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 1: we can. So it's a very deep blue.

1036
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:23,320
Speaker 2: Does that mean that if I stare at a banana

1037
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:26,240
Speaker 2: long enough, it'll eventually look blue.

1038
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:28,879
Speaker 1: I think it means if you stare a banana long

1039
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: enough and close your eyes, you'll see an impossibly blue banana.

1040
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 2: I guess you won't see it because you won't be

1041
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 2: like experiencing photons from the banana. It'll be like sort

1042
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 2: of this lingering memory in your visual cortex of a

1043
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:41,280
Speaker 2: blue banana.

1044
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll be experiencing a deep blue banana even though

1045
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 1: you're not getting blue photons from the banana.

1046
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 2: From the banana, Yeah, yeah, I guess it's all because

1047
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 2: we have this kind of flawed bio logical machinery that's

1048
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 2: trying to interpret with the frequency that we see in

1049
00:50:57,120 --> 00:50:59,719
Speaker 2: the world. But maybe through revolution, it's done it in

1050
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 2: a week way where you have these weird effects right

1051
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 2: where we can see certain combinations or you know, we

1052
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 2: see residual colors.

1053
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:09,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, all of these colors in the end are brain's

1054
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: interpretation of these signals, signals that are typically generated by

1055
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 1: this experience or that experience. Back for in the corners

1056
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:18,879
Speaker 1: of this and the limitations of it, we can try

1057
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: to get some understanding of what it means to see

1058
00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:23,359
Speaker 1: color what it tells us about what's happening out there

1059
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: in the universe.

1060
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 2: Because I guess you know, as physicists or as scientists,

1061
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 2: we can think about all the different frequencies of light.

1062
00:51:30,719 --> 00:51:33,480
Speaker 2: But maybe if you're like a simple creature, you don't

1063
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:35,400
Speaker 2: need to know all that information, Like you don't need

1064
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:37,920
Speaker 2: to know whether something's ten point seven herds. You just

1065
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 2: need to know, like, is this thing going to eat

1066
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 2: me or not? That's in front of me? Is it red?

1067
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 2: Is it the red kind that's going to eat me?

1068
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:45,160
Speaker 2: Or is it the blue kind that's going to not

1069
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 2: eat me?

1070
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And that's why some bees can see into

1071
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: the ultraviolet because they have to despot the right kind

1072
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:54,080
Speaker 1: of flower. For example. That's probably why manti strimp have

1073
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,759
Speaker 1: super impressive hardware for ultrafast processing of this color and

1074
00:51:57,800 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 1: then like mostly waste that information because the don't really

1075
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: need to know specifically, they just needed fast processing.

1076
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:06,520
Speaker 2: Now, if a manta shrimp looked at a banana, would

1077
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:07,400
Speaker 2: it think it's a banana?

1078
00:52:08,640 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: That's another philosophy of paper I want.

1079
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 2: To write over to think, Oh, that's a nice digim

1080
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 2: blue banana.

1081
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 1: What is it like to be a manta strip eating

1082
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: a banana.

1083
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 2: Nobody knows that's the right feel. I'm pretty sure nobody

1084
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 2: has published that paper.

1085
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: I'm going to get on it.

1086
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 2: All right. Well, the interesting discussion here about what color

1087
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:33,799
Speaker 2: is and what we can perceive. And you know, it

1088
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 2: has a physical basis, but our brains the way it's evolved,

1089
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 2: don't experience maybe the world the way physics has built it.

1090
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 1: And it's important to remember that our experience in the

1091
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 1: universe is always one step divorced from the reality of

1092
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 1: the universe, which is, in the end, our interpretation of

1093
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 1: a model we are building in our brain. Our a

1094
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,840
Speaker 1: direct experience is what we actually can count on. Everything

1095
00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: else is our interpretation.

1096
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:01,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if that makes you red with anger or

1097
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:03,600
Speaker 2: blue with sadness, just close your eyes.

1098
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 1: Don't yellow at us.

1099
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine a more beautiful universe of colors. All right, Well,

1100
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 2: we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us. See

1101
00:53:12,680 --> 00:53:13,279
Speaker 2: you next time.

1102
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:20,920
Speaker 1: For more science and curiosity, come find us on social

1103
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:24,920
Speaker 1: media where we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter,

1104
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 1: disc Org, Insta, and now TikTok. Thanks for listening, and

1105
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:31,440
Speaker 1: remember that Daniel and Jorge explain the universe is a

1106
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the

1107
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:40,279
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1108
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:41,080
Speaker 1: favorite shows.