GRGR (8) Mauve, Coal Tar & Seances, Part 2

[argus.]

the whole magenta field of colors (including mauve) relies
on stimulation of the red and blue sensors in the eye without
the green sensors in between.  with the rest of colors, the
eyes process the wavelengths and take a sort of "average wavelength"
that equals a 400 meter wavelngth or 700 or whatever.  but
with output both in the red and blue but no green in between,
it doesnt work to take an average: your blue and red would
equal green!  so the eye perceives mauve.  a color that doesnt
exist in reality, that has no equivalent wavelngth.

pretty cool.

take care all,
susanargus

> st.'s query:
> 
> >
> >Pynchon mentions that Mauve was the first non-natural occuring color.
> >Is this mere fiction, or is there some truth.
> >
> 
> Looks like William Henry Perkin (1837-19O8) "isolated what was to become
> the first dyestuff produced commercially from coal tar: mauve."
> http://www.chemheritage.org/perkin/Perkin/perkin.html
> Also http://www2.utep.edu/~allchin/ships/scimath/polymer1.htm
> Apparently Perkin produced this "first aniline dye . . . accidentally in
> 1856" when he was a chemistry student and "trying to synthesize quinine";
> "called [it] mauve."  http://www.sff.net/people/gunn/dd/c.htm
> Or "French dyers clamored for the new dye and named the color 'mauve.'"
> http://www.nidlink.com/~jfromm/history/synorg.htm
> 
> Josh
> 
>