Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

Ufortunately, you can't just infinitely divide wavelengths. Doesn't work that way. In fact, it was this very problem that provided the early impetus for quantum mechanics. Not all wavelengths are represented.

IanC

Just a guess, but would QM have something to say about discrete steps in possible energies? Perhaps in multiples of the smallest energy possible?

Just a stab in the dark, though.
Ian

jcsd

Only in certain cases (e.g. infinite square wells).


QM does not put general limiations on the allowable wavelengths of light.

I. C. Unicorns

I say no, because the universe is a giant energy well which forces the energy levels within it to be quantized. The differences in energy levels may be unmeasureable however.

youngalexander

Color is not determined by QM. From the link I gave above Wiki Color
It is not a question of infinite divisions of frequencies. Color depends upon the physics of EM and human perception.

jcsd

Can't seem to remember saying otherwise.

Though as EM depends on quantum physics it does depend on QM. Whether colour should be viewed objectively or subjectivvely is whole 'nother thing.

Duck!

If human vision could resolve 192bit colour - wouldn't that be far more than 8 times the resolution? Adding more bits of information per pixel results in exponentially increasing the possible range of colours.

24bit colour = 16.7million different colours
192bit colour = 6.27710174 × 10^57 differrent colours (that's trillions of trillions times more colours than 24bit)

If you can barely detect differences in adjacent colours in an 8-bit per primary colour scheme, then even 10-bits per primary would give you 4 times (2bits^2) the resolution per pixel and 64 times the resolution in the RGB colour model. 2^30 = 2^24 * 64


Duck!

Jackalope

There's some slight evidence that some females may be tetrachromats (have 4 types of cone receptors instead of 3). The fourth type of cone is most likely a second variety of green, though it could be a second type of blue. Since no confirmed human tetrachromat has been found and hauled into a lab yet, we can't be sure. Some of our primate cousins have the trait.

Certainly there are some of us who can finely discern differences in shades of greens and blues. I've given up trying to adjust monitors by eyeballing them, because I seem to see blue much more strongly than "normal" folk do. And as a graphic artist, RGB greens...suck. I can't get them to look anywhere near as vibrant as I can with paints or inks. I can tweak the blues a little closer. Red/orange/yellow are less likely to be plain wrong when I'm trying to reproduce colors on a monitor.

Am I a tetrachromat? Who knows? I do know I always score high on those color perception tests at the opthamologist's office. And my mother tends to consistently see shades of green and blue that other people can't either.

Christopher Lord

Could you cite something for this?

I know film uses silver-halide crystals — usually three kinds, each spectrally sensitive to a different band. And each crystal is fixed either to an on or an off position at exposure. Longer exposures simply cause more crystals to become fixed.

So each crystal contains only one bit of information by definition (whether or not photons of the right colour were seen at its position). Film gets its resolution and quality from the fact that the crystals are small and numerous. Film is essentially a really fine half-tone print!

So any claim as to the number of colours that can be seen by film must make some sort of assumption about the 'size' of the sample. Suppose the sample circle is 1mm, then there can be x number of crystals in that circle, each encoding 1 bit. so there are x bits of information per mm. Someone really pro-film could use a very large circle radius to make film's colour response look great.