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Discover how many colors your eye can see

⏱️ 8-12 minutes 📊 Beginner 🔬 Science

About This Idea

Learn that the human eye can distinguish approximately 10 million different colors, yet most languages have fewer than 11 basic color terms. This quick lesson reveals the gap between what we perceive and what we can describe.

#vision#color#perception#linguistics#biology

📑 Table of Contents

How to Get Started

STEP 1
THE NUMBERS (3 minutes)
  1. Human eye can distinguish:
  2. - ~10 million different colors
  3. - Some estimates: 7-10 million
  4. - Depends on individual vision
  5. - Women slightly better than men (more cones)
  6. But most languages have:
  7. - Fewer than 11 basic color words
  8. - English: ~11 (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, white, gray, brown)
  9. - Some languages: only 2-3 basic terms
  10. Huge perception-language gap!
STEP 2
HOW WE SEE COLOR (3 minutes)
  1. Eye has three types of cones:
  2. - S-cones (short wavelength - blue)
  3. - M-cones (medium - green)
  4. - L-cones (long - red)
  5. Brain combines signals:
  6. - Millions of possible combinations
  7. - Each combo = different color
  8. Some people (tetrachromats) have 4 cone types:
  9. - Can see ~100 million colors
  10. - Mostly women
  11. - Very rare
STEP 3
LANGUAGE LIMITS (4 minutes)
  1. We perceive millions, name dozens
  2. Languages develop color terms in order:
  3. 1. Black and white (all languages)
  4. 2. Red (3rd term in most languages)
  5. 3. Yellow or green
  6. 4. Blue
  7. 5. Brown
  8. 6. Purple, pink, orange, gray
  9. Some languages:
  10. - Russian: separate words for light/dark blue
  11. - Japanese: historically blue-green same word
  12. - Welsh: green-blue-gray overlap
  13. Language shapes how we categorize colors
  14. But doesn't limit what we see
STEP 4
THE GAP (2 minutes)
  1. Shows:
  2. - Perception exceeds description
  3. - Language is approximate
  4. - We see more than we can say
  5. This is why:
  6. - Paint stores have thousands of colors
  7. - Artists need expanded vocabularies
  8. - 'Chartreuse' vs 'yellow-green'
  9. We can distinguish, even if we can't name

What You'll Need

Recommended Resources

📚 Tutorials & Learning

  • Color Perception 🔗
    Color vision info
  • Language and Color 🔗
    Video on color naming

👥 Communities

  • r/linguistics 🔗
    Linguistics discussion

Progress Milestones

Track your progress with these key achievements:

1
5 minutes
Understand color perception
2
8 minutes
Learn language limitations
3
12 minutes
Grasp perception-language gap

Common Challenges & Solutions

Every beginner faces obstacles. Here's how to overcome them:

⚠️ Seems like there are way more color words
Solution: There are many color names (teal, crimson, navy), but only ~11 BASIC terms that can't be described using other colors. 'Navy' is just 'dark blue,' 'crimson' is 'dark red.' The basic terms are the building blocks.

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