Interesting facts about colors

• 1. A bull in a bullfight attacks a matador's red cloak, which is called a muleta, not at all because red color irritates him - after all, cows/bulls do not distinguish colors. In fact, the bull reacts to movement when the bullfighter swings the muleta. And red was historically chosen to make the bull's blood less noticeable.
• 2. A flight recorder, which is installed on aircraft to record information about the technical condition of all devices, as well as the actions and conversations of the crew, is often called a “black box”. Although in fact this device does not have the shape of a box, but a ball or cylinder, and its color is not black, but red or orange, so that it is easier to find in case of an accident.
• 3. The concept of "white noise" is widely known - this is what they say about a signal with a uniform spectral density at all frequencies and dispersion equal to infinity. An example of white noise is the sound of a waterfall. However, in addition to white, a large number of other colored noises are distinguished. Pink noise is a signal whose density is inversely proportional to frequency, and for red noise, the density is inversely proportional to the square of frequency - they are perceived by ear as "warmer" than white. There are also concepts of blue, purple, gray noise and many others.
• 4. The short-wave components of the solar spectrum are scattered in the air more strongly than the long-wave ones. This is why we see the sky as blue, because blue is at the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum. For a similar reason, during sunset or dawn, the sky turns red on the horizon. At this time, the light travels tangentially to the earth's surface, and its path in the atmosphere is much longer, as a result of which a significant part of the blue and green color due to scattering leaves direct sunlight.
• 5. Many people think that a zebra is a white horse with a black stripe because zebras have white bellies. However, studies of zebras at the embryonic stage show that the background color of the animal is black, so it is more correct to consider a zebra black with white stripes.
• 6. Earlier in Scotland there was a color differentiation of kilts. Depending on his rank, a person had the right to wear a kilt with a limited set of colored stripes in the fabric. For example, the six-color kilt was the exclusive privilege of the king. Also, a set of colors in a kilt made it possible to judge where a person came from, since the weavers had a limited choice of plants for a given area, from which they could obtain paint.
• 7. During their construction in the Middle Ages the facades of Gothic cathedrals were not necessarily as gray and austere as we see them now. When Amiens Cathedral in France underwent laser cleaning in the 1990s, it was discovered that the façade had been painted in a variety of vibrant colors centuries ago. Now this cathedral is illuminated on holidays with the same colors as it was in the 13th century.
• 8. In one of the prisons in Georgia, the entire interior of the men's section is painted pink, and the inmates wear pink uniforms. According to the head of the prison, after this innovation, there were significantly fewer conflicts among prisoners in the prison. The women's part of the prison was painted lemon green, although it is not reported whether it has the same effect.
• 9. Brown color is strongly associated with Nazism today. Although it was chosen by the Nazis not on purpose, but for a completely prosaic reason. When Germany lost its African colonies after the First World War, a large number of brown uniforms (especially used for African landscapes) remained in warehouses. This uniform was purchased by the National Socialist Party at a cheap price for their assault squads.
• 10. Billiards originated from games with a stick and balls in the open air and is somewhat related to golf and croquet. Therefore, in tribute to tradition, the cloth on most billiard tables is green, like the color of grass.
• 11. Many of us use toothpaste with several stripes (for example, red, white and blue). However, why do the stripes stay even and the colors don't mix? For this, a special tube is used, patented in the USA in the late 1950s. The neck of such a tube is an elongated tube that ends at the filling level of the white base of the paste. Closer to the neck in this tube there are small holes through which colored fillers enter.
• 12. The Spanish royal family and nobility were proud that, unlike the common people, they trace their ancestry to the West Goths and never mixed with the Moors who entered Spain from Africa. Unlike the dark-skinned commoners, blue veins stood out in the pale skin of the upper class, and therefore they called themselves sangre azul, which means "blue blood". Hence, this expression for the designation of the aristocracy penetrated into many European languages, including Ukrainian.
• 13. The flag of the Philippines consists of a white triangle, which contains the sun and stars, and two stripes - blue and red. This is the only national flag that has two equal options: in peacetime, the blue stripe is on top and red on the bottom, and when the Philippines is at war, then it is vice versa.
• 14. In the era of black-and-white television, red filters were often used in cameras, because of which red lipstick made lips look pale on TV screens. Therefore, announcers and actresses were made up with green blush and lipstick.
• 15. Initially, in Japanese there was no difference between blue and green, and one word was used to designate them - aoi. Distinguishing blue and green in educational textbooks began only in the middle of the 20th century, but even today the word aoi can denote the color of vegetation. And in many other Asian languages, even if there are separate words for these colors, natural objects, such as leaves, are indicated in blue, and only man-made green objects in green.
• 16. Blue eyes are the result of a mutation in the HERC2 gene, due to which carriers of this gene have reduced melanin production in the iris. This mutation arose about 6-10 thousand years ago in the northwestern part of the Black Sea coast, so that all people with blue eyes can be considered relatives.
• 17. For a long time it was believed that ancient Greek white marble sculptures were originally colorless. However, recent research by scientists has confirmed the hypothesis that the statues were painted in a wide range of colors, which eventually disappeared under prolonged exposure to light and air.
• 18. Although the multi-color spectrum of the rainbow is continuous, according to tradition, 7 colors are distinguished in it. It is believed that Isaac Newton was the first to choose this number. Moreover, initially he distinguished only five colors - red, yellow, green, blue and violet, which he wrote about in his Optics. But later, in an effort to create a correspondence between the number of colors of the spectrum and the number of fundamental tones of the musical scale, Newton added two more colors.
• 19. Dalmatian puppies are born completely white.
• 20. The pink color of flamingos is not given to them from birth, but comes from small red crustaceans or algae that they eat; and they contain carotenoids.