The Weird World in RGB

Technology Connections · 2.7M views · 2019 · 22:19

Open on YouTube

Graphic design & typographyEveryday physics & science demosNeuroscience & the brainexplainer

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN points to it as an accessible explanation of how color and reflected light behave, especially under LED lighting.

What it is

Technology Connections explains how RGB light and color work, from hue and saturation to color vision and how objects appear under different lighting. It uses a studio setup with colored lights to demonstrate the effects.

Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2020 to 2021.

What Hacker News said

Recommends lathiat · 2020-09 · on “Short History of LED Lighting”

This works for direct illumination (eg an LCD screen) but fails for reflected light (eg a light). This video from Technology Connections helps explain [this video]

Cites zinekeller · 2021-02 · on “Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]”

Short answer: No. We (the majority anyway, as some are colourblind) only perceive lightness, reddish, greenish, and bluish. The brain uses the info and effectively synthesises the image in our brains. Long answer: Colour is a very rabbithole topic but Captain Disillusion has a summary of it ( [LINK] ) and Technology Connections has a discussion ( [this video] ).

Cites goblin89 · 2021-11 · on “Japanese Philosophies That'll Help You Spend Money Consciously”

Why would you do that I don't know, but for me personally the reason is that LEDs tend to strobe (sometimes noticeably to peripheral vision) and do not emit a smooth continuous spectrum—unlike incandescent bulbs, they produce a narrow, spiky spectrum[0] and objects in your room may look unnatural as they reflect it[1]; this may be especially bad with some RGB LEDs but fundamentally is a property of all LED lights because physics. [0] [LINK] [1] [this video]