Writing a paper on something as simple and yet complex as,
“How many different colors are there?” naturally leads one to have to
open up an exploration into physics, human biology, and digital technology.
Each area will lend an insight from its point of view on what is
understood by ‘color’ and how to perceive and quantify this concept. This will
also provide a series of images that could accompany the text to
expose the reader to the conceptualizations.
The Physics of Color
At its core, color is a physical phenomenon and belongs to
the basic elements of the visible light spectrum. All light may be
electromagnetic radiation, but only a rather small part of its spectrum can
normally be seen by the human eye—generally, from wavelengths of about 380
nanometers (violet) to 700 nanometers (red).
Also read: The Color Of Your Eyes Is The Mirror Of Your Personality
The true rainbow comprises solely a part of the visible
spectrum.
The Biology of Color Perception
Color is perceived by the human eye through cones in the
retina. Every cone is sensitive to three different wavelengths of light (short,
S; medium, M; and long, L), whereby they approximately correspond to blue,
green, and red lights. All colors arise from varying stimuli of the three
cones, and so sums up our experience of color.
Firstly, the ability to perceive color varies greatly from
one individual to another and may even further be subject to the age, gender,
and culture of the person. Some people have more or fewer cones than others
(cases of colorblindness or tetrachromacy), thus making color perception a
subjective and dependent subject on an individual’s physiological makeup.
Also read: Top 10 Mind-Blowing Facts We All Get Wrong About Colors
Color in Digital Technology
In digital technology, the color is represented by several
different models, while RGB (Red, Green, Blue) is basic for screens and
displays. This model uses varied strengths in red, green, and blue light to
construct a myriad of colors. Printers have their own CMYK (Cyan, Magenta,
Yellow, Key/Black) model for producing colors on paper.
That’s in millions of flowers – what can be implemented by
digital appliances. Hence, the 24-bit color depth that, allows for maximum
variety equal to 16,777,216 combinations of color composition, is in an exotic
system. Certainly, so far from the possibilities of our eyes because this
number is greatly simplified according to the level of technology and shows
only how many different human-perceptible colors it contains.
How Many Different Colors Are There?
And also the quantification of total numbers is a tough thing because color perception is not step-by-step but a continuum.
A rough estimation is that around 10 million different colors
are discernible by human eyes. This number can also vary in range by different
categories ranging from the criteria for differentiation to the individualist
abilities of color perception etc.
Disciplines linked with color come with their rigorous color
systems and palettes: painting, digital design, and printing. Systems like the
Pantone Matching System try to standardize colors, but it is really impossible
to describe the full perceptual gamut of human color perception.
So, how many different colors are there? Scientifically,
this isn’t an easy query. Digital quantifies color variations into millions,
and human biology shows we may see about 10 million discrete colors, yet the
fact remains that color is a continuous spectrum. In very many ways, their
number is infinite, set only by these nuances in human perception and
technology limitations used to display or reproduce colors.
The search for color is indeed transdisciplinary; every
field offers one, at best two pieces to the puzzle. The ability to quantify and
understand a concept of color says as much about inquiry in its strictest sense
as it does about humanity’s impulse towards systematizing life’s complexities
to appreciate the beauty present in the world roundabout each living
individual on some relative level.
