There are no flowers in nature as such. Each shade that we see is set by one or another wavelength. Red is produced by the longest wavelengths and is one of the two ends of the visible spectrum.
On the nature of color
The appearance of a particular color can be explained by the laws of physics. All colors and shades are the result of brain processing of information coming through the eyes in the form of light waves of various wavelengths. In the absence of waves, people see black, and with a single exposure to the entire spectrum, white.
The colors of objects are determined by the ability of their surfaces to absorb certain wavelengths and repel all others. Lighting also matters: the brighter the light, the more intense the waves are reflected, and the brighter the object looks.
People are able to distinguish more than a hundred thousand colors. Favorite by many scarlet, burgundy and cherry shades are formed by the longest waves. However, for the human eye to see red, the wavelength must not exceed 700 nanometers. Beyond this threshold begins the invisibleinfrared spectrum for humans. The opposite boundary separating the violet hues from the ultraviolet spectrum is at a level of about 400 nm.
Color spectrum
The spectrum of colors as some of their totality, distributed in ascending order of wavelength, was discovered by Newton during his famous experiments with a prism. It was he who singled out 7 clearly distinguishable colors, and among them - 3 main ones. Red color refers to both distinguishable and basic. All the shades that people distinguish are the visible region of the vast electromagnetic spectrum. Thus, color is an electromagnetic wave of a certain length, not shorter than 400, but not longer than 700 nm.
Newton noticed that beams of light of different colors had different degrees of refraction. To put it more correctly, the glass refracted them in different ways. The maximum speed of the passage of rays through the substance and, as a consequence, the lowest refraction was facilitated by the largest wavelength. Red is the visible representation of the least refracted rays.
Waves forming red
An electromagnetic wave is characterized by such parameters as length, frequency and photon energy. Under the wavelength (λ) it is customary to understand the smallest distance between its points, which oscillate in the same phases. Basic Wavelength Units:
- micron (1/1000000 meters);
- millimicron, or nanometer (1/1000 micron);
- angstrom (1/10 millimicron).
Maximum possible wavelengthred is equal to 780 microns (7800 angstroms) when passing through a vacuum. The minimum wavelength of this spectrum is 625 microns (6250 angstroms).
Another significant indicator is the oscillation frequency. It is related to the length, so the wave can be set to any of these values. The frequency of red waves is in the range from 400 to 480 Hz. The photon energy in this case forms a range from 1.68 to 1.98 eV.
Red temperature
Shades that a person subconsciously perceives as warm or cold, from a scientific point of view, as a rule, have the opposite temperature regime. The colors associated with sunlight - red, orange, yellow - are usually considered warm, and the opposite colors are considered cold.
However, radiation theory proves otherwise: reds have a much lower color temperature than blues. In fact, this is easy to confirm: hot young stars have a bluish light, and fading stars have a red one; when heated, the metal first turns red, then yellow, and then white.
According to Wien's law, there is an inverse relationship between the degree of heating of the wave and its length. The more the object heats up, the more power falls on radiation from the short wave region, and vice versa. It remains only to remember where in the visible spectrum there is the largest wavelength: red takes a position contrasting with blue tones and is the least warm.
Shades of red
Depending on the specific value,which has a wavelength, the red color takes on various shades: scarlet, raspberry, burgundy, brick, cherry, etc.
Hue is characterized by 4 parameters. These are like:
- Tone - the place that a color occupies in the spectrum among the 7 visible colors. The length of the electromagnetic wave sets the tone.
- Brightness - is determined by the strength of the radiation of energy of a certain color tone. The maximum decrease in brightness leads to the fact that a person will see black. With a gradual increase in brightness, a brown color will appear, followed by burgundy, then scarlet, and with a maximum increase in energy, bright red.
- Lightness - characterizes the proximity of the shade to white. White color is the result of mixing waves of different spectra. By successively building up this effect, the red color will turn into crimson, then pink, then light pink, and finally white.
- Saturation - determines how far a color is from gray. Gray is inherently the three primary colors mixed in varying amounts when the brightness of light emission is reduced to 50%.
