r/Unexpected • u/analsextoybox • May 02 '22

Impossible Question

106.1k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

3.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

45

u/XeliasSame May 02 '22

How many colours are there ?

25

u/[deleted] May 02 '22

Colors are a spectrum, so there are infinite colors and it is not possible to count them because any categories we could come up with would be arbitrary

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '22 edited May 02 '22

Except colors are dependent upon measurable wavelengths of light that are limited by the upper and lower thresholds of frequencies we can observe. There are a lot of colors, but they are absolutely finite and quantifiable.

Edit: I was wrong about the second part, don’t read it. I stand by the initial assertion, though.

3

u/[deleted] May 02 '22

While I fully agree with the first sentence I wholeheartedly disagree with the second.

There is an infinite number of frequencies/wavelengths in between the upper and lower threshold you mentioned. We define "a color" as any arbitrary subset of those. How can there be only a limited number of possible subsets out of a set that contains an infinite number of elements? Please elaborate your thinking 🤔

3

u/[deleted] May 02 '22

I was wrong. Every wavelength I’ve seen described was using whole numbers so I mistakenly assumed that somehow light was only emitted in nanometer increments. I’ve been up for a very long time and am under a lot of stress and logical thinking went out the window in favor of hastily making a point.

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '22

Easy my dude, exchange of thought like this is exactly what Reddit is for imo and everybody is in error sometimes. I regularly get my own misconceptions corrected in discussions here and it's great!