Black bodies and white horizons

 

 

 

By

 

Gene Fredericks

 

 

 

Part of Reflections on the universe as I see it

 

 

I first looked at the CIE three-dimensional color model back in 1979 and had an “Ah Ha” moment about light and color and everything! The most intriguing aspect of the model was how far out beyond the human visible spectrum light was able to affect what we did see.  For example, black lights allowed us to see color within what appeared to be white, like the colors revealed in rock crystals, and the invisible ink we use for hand stamps.  And infrared light skews light to make meat appear more appealing to the eye. But how far beyond those do the non-visible waves affect what we see, hmmm?

 

I noticed at the center was an amorphous area occupied by “white,” and since it was an XYZ axis model, the white was rising.  I wondered if the model showed the visible spectrum and the shape resembled a tetrahedron, how large could that tetrahedron become if non-visible light was added on both the shorter blue end and longer red wavelengths end.  So I made a model that had white at the center and red, blue, and green at the bases.  And when I unfolded that tetrahedron, I had a flat plane with reddish white at one point, bluish white at another point, and greenish white on the third point, and the center which had nothing in it but I realized it could be used to contain all darker colors moving toward black or the lack of color.  At the time, I did not know anything about the color model, but in that instant, I felt I had uncovered some magical secret! I saw the model as a tetrahedron described additive color exactly as the CIE model, as a flat model, it described and subtractive color!  

​

​

​

​

​​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

Then I started to wonder, would the addition of non-human visible light, like the ultraviolet and infrared waves beyond the edges of the CIE model, cause the center white to be brighter or even higher, like a tetrahedron that grows?    I learned later about color temperature derived by heating a black body and realized that there was light that we cannot see that will blind us, and I wondered how far that goes.  My journey into the world of light and color has taken on many shades and hues since then.  I started to think about the wavelength of light and frequency and how they always came out to the speed of light, but that created a gnawing problem for me, one that I am still trying to resolve.  When I thought about the tiniest of waves and frequencies, I realized that an infinitely small wavelength would have an infinite high frequency, and the longest wave crest would never crest again and have no frequency. One is a dot, the other a line. I later learned about Planck’s length, moment and temperature. I am still thinking about that!