Infra-yellow!

This message is or should be legitimately cross posted to
sci.med.vision and rec.arts.comics.dc.universe

So please make sure that all responses are, likewise, cross posted
both to sci.med.vision and rec.arts.comics.dc.universe

I am endeavoring to resolve some classic comix bad science with a
handy real science explanation.

However I seem to be experiencing difficulty getting my point across
on rec.arts.comics.dc.universe

So I am now appealing for help and clarification on sci.med.vision.

Thanks!
======


Perceived color correlates not to light wavelength, but to ratio of
wavelengths. Even different wavelengths in similar ratios can be
perceived as similar color. And the perceived colors include yellow.

Infra-yellow, then, refers neither simply to orange nor to entirely
new spectral coordinates or exotic quantum characteristics of photons,
but rather to different non visible radiation wavelength emissions
within ratios similar to those in which visible light is perceived as
yellow.

Hence the invisible infra-yellow has the similar nullifying effects
upon power ring energies as visible yellow light and pigments.

That so many utterly different sapient species are capable to
perceive yellow, the wavelength ratios upon which power rings have no
effect, is often cited as evidentiary support for Intelligent Design
throughout the galaxies.

 

Why?

Just wondering,
Tom

 

How does one explain interest or amusement in anything that clearly
has no practical value? -Let alone anything this nerdy!

 

You do speak of chemical ratios within the eye, corresponding to the
different color perceptions. Indeed, rods and cones do not respond
each only to a particular range of wavelength or color. Rather they
each respond to the entire visible spectrum, but each to a particular
range, more strongly. Colors as perceive are, indeed, a function of
the ratios of response.

There was a famous experiment by Rand Polaroid, in which a color scene
was photographed twice on black and white film, but with slightly
different yellow lenses. The slides where then projected together onto
the same screen, through the same filters through which they had been
photographed, respectively.

Lo and behold, full color is perceived by all! -A little washed out,
but quite distinctly...

I witnessed a demonstration as a child.

Now, returning to my Science Fiction speculation, I propose that for a
being with vission in a different range, perhaps colors including
yellow might nevertheless be perceived, likewise, from a ration, or as
the F-sharp Bell might think of it, an harmonic, of the correct ratio.
Hence infra or ultra yellow! Can you do better??

And there is a clear and certain survival importance to the ability to
so perceive, that I need not go into, within the mythos of Green
Lantern comic books. Still, it all seems awfully convenient enough
perhaps to smack of deus ex machina or divine intervention!

 

So is this all a reference to the classic "invisible yellow force
field" from the old issue of Green Lantern? It seems that you're
stating that there might truly be energy that has "yellow" qualities
that would not be perceived by the human eye, thus "invisible yellow".

 

Yes.

 

What of it?

"Representation of the colors each type of cone cell is MOST
responsive to." Each type of receptor responds to a range of
wavelengths, but each responds to a particular wavelength more
strongly than others. What is not made clear, is that perceived color
is a factor of the ratios of strength of response, between the
different come types. And the amazing discovery of the groundbreaking
Rand Polaroid experiment, was how similar ratios of different
wavelengths entirely, are perceived as the same color! And I was
actually hoping that anyone might be able to help me track down the
proper citation.

Obviously, there can be no vissual response to the unseen. But there
can still be a ratio of difference between two frequencies within the
same emitted or reflected beam of radiation.

Perhaps for Xax of Xaos, the insect Green Lantern, there is a "Yellow"
perception from certain ratios of UV wavelengths eliciting certain
ratios of response within different facets of his compound eyes,
thereby alerting him that they will tend to neutralize the influence
of the Power Device about his thorax.

text -