The “World’s Whitest Paint” with 98% light reflectance. Pure white, pure black, or pure blue? Thinking about the definition of color

【Realization of “the world’s whitest paint” with a light reflectance of approximately 98%, less than half the thickness of previous paints, and a level of application for aircraft and automobile paints.】
https://gigazine.net/news/20221005-the-most-whitist-paint-for-vehicles/

・Purdue University’s mechanical engineering professor Shu-Lin Luan and her research team develop a new paint that can be applied more than half as thin as conventional paint, while reflecting almost as much light as the “world’s whitest paint,” which has a 98.1% light reflectance.

・White” means “reflecting most of the wavelengths of visible light that hit it. In other words, the higher the light reflectance, the whiter the substance. And the higher the light reflectance, the lower the light absorption, and thus the less likely to be warmed by light.

・This paint has the potential to cool the exterior of airplanes, cars, trains, spacecraft, etc.

These are the quotes from the article

Pure white or pure black? Pitch black? Then, what about pure blue or pure red? Think about the definition of colors in an interesting way.

When I read this article, I was immediately reminded of a previous blog I wrote.↓

【Why are alarm signals red? It was interesting to think about light wavelengths and reflections.】
https://amimako.com/science-free-spectre-light-cmyk-red-wave-study/

In this blog, I have introduced a substance called “Ventablack” that absorbs 99% of light,

This time, I would like to talk about a pure white paint that reflects 98.1% of light.

When I hear pure black and pure white, it is like the definition of pure yellow, blue, and red. Is there such a thing as pure yellow, blue, or red? And I had another interesting thought.

So I immediately thought of RGB and CYMK.

If you are involved in imaging or printing-related work, you will immediately recognize these color terms. (RGB = three primary colors of light, CMYK = three primary colors of color)

【What is RGB/CMYK?　How to express colors you should pay attention to in design production】
https://noveblo.com/rgb-cmyk/

Here’s a little experiment.

Picture your image of pure red, green, and blue.

↓Scroll down. (Borrow image from URL)

RGB

In terms of RGB data, I think we can say that the R (Red) 255, G (Green) 255, and B (Blue) 255 portions are pure red, green, and blue.

How did the color compare to what you imagined?

I felt it was much brighter than the red-green-blue I had imagined.

Just for reference, I’ve included CMYK as well.

But CMYK is intended for printed materials,

Since you are probably viewing the blog on a smartphone or PC screen, I don’t think it would be a good reference this time. Since you are looking at it through a glowing screen, it is still better to refer to RGB, the three primary colors of light, in this case.

So far,

What is pure red or green? We have talked about RGB and CMYK from

To begin with, the pure white and pure black mentioned above are 99% and 98.1%, so strictly speaking, they are not 100% pure white and 100% pure black.^^

And for other colors,

As you can see from this diagram, strict red and green may not even be definable!。

Furthermore, I am sure that my image of blue and your image of blue are different blues.

I was reminded that there is no such thing as a pure definition of color.

And furthermore, if we think expansively,

Based on the discussion of colors up to this point,

It might be interesting to replace “color” with “human individuality.

The above is from the pure white, pure black story,

I have tried to think about it in various interesting ways.

See you then.

No one is completely black and no one is completely white. Perhaps it is better to think of each person as having his or her own ratio of RGB. And when people (colors) and people (colors) meet (mix), new colors are born.