I'd say that a prism can be any color you want it to be.
Put it on black paper, it will be black. (Wait, black isn't a color either) Anyway. . . put it on a red tomato, it will be red. Put it in the grass and it will be green. . . etc.
Seems the word 'prism' could figuratively be applied to our own eyes, when colored by our experiences and resultant presuppositions.
The part that wasn't stupid was that I think Bridget96 has made a wonderful comparison. The rest was a mixture of nattering and YART. There, B--I think our sighs cancelled each other out.
It is true, Max. I am not especially eager to become a...a... that thing. Especially not after visiting a site that has a remarkable likeness to Tsuwm.
In one episode of The Simpsons Bart's sister Lisa was trying to help him train for a important game of miniature golf by introducing him to Zen. She asked him, "what is the sound of one hand clapping?", and he responded by clapping one hand, which is, of course, incredibly easy to do, though I had never thought to try it, before seeing it done.
Thanks Max. for further confusing this furriner.Just to pay you back, I will describe a VD diagnostic breakthrough in the forties. The gonophone,a special catheter with a microphone in it, so that every time a gonococcus went by the tip, the doctor with the earphones could hear it go "Clap,Clap!"
You have to think about: how do you define colour? It is the part of the spectrum which is reflected back to your eyes rather than absorbed by the object that it strikes. Glass has a very small reflection coefficient, so not much light is reflected back to you to begin with. As for the spectral variation of the reflection coefficient, I am not sure about it, but if I had time I could probably look it up. But I think your eyes won't see much difference if it reflects, say, 2% of the intensity of red light and 1% of the intensity of blue light. Both numbers are so small that you don't notice a particular colour being preferentially reflected. So the colour would be - whatever preferred word for no colour at all - I would call it "clear".
Now you say, but the prism splits light into a rainbow. Yes, but that is the light that goes through it, not the light that is reflected. If you're sticking to the reflection definition of colour, then the prism is clearly clear. 'laugh] You can't see the rainbow part unless you project it onto something, which isn't the same thing as the colour of the prism itself.
Polarization is a lot harder to explain in words (physics is all about drawing things, which I am terrible at), so I will leave that unless someone PMs me to ask.
Disclaimer: Wordsmith.org is not responsible for views expressed on this site.
Use of this forum is at your own risk and liability - you agree to
hold Wordsmith.org and its associates harmless as a condition of using it.
