{"id":1600,"date":"2025-02-08T19:58:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T19:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/?p=1600"},"modified":"2025-02-16T15:35:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T15:35:41","slug":"the-science-of-light-from-white-to-rgb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/the-science-of-light-from-white-to-rgb\/","title":{"rendered":"The Science of Light: From White to RGB"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When a beam of white <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Light\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">light<\/a>, composed of three converging monochromatic sources\u2014red, green, and blue\u2014passes through a slit, it is decomposed into its constituent colors. This results in three distinct vertical bands\u2014red, green, and blue\u2014which are projected onto a screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If an obstacle, such as a vertical wooden rod, is placed before the slit, it partially blocks some of the light components. As a result, three vertical stripes\u2014cyan, magenta, and yellow\u2014appear at the location of the slit. These colors are the complements of the original light sources and emerge through <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Subtractive_color\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">subtractive color mixing<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Cyan<\/strong> appears where red is blocked.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Magenta<\/strong> appears where green is blocked.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Yellow<\/strong> appears where blue is blocked.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>By moving the rod, one can control which complementary color passes through the slit. This complementary color then cancels out its corresponding primary color behind the slit. For example, if magenta passes through, it eliminates green from the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter\"><video height=\"720\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 720 \/ 720;\" width=\"720\" controls src=\"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Additive_color_mixing-1.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The concept of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Additive_color\">additive color mixing<\/a> can be confusing for those who aren\u2019t familiar with artistic or design principles. This is because people are generally more accustomed to subtractive color mixing, which is how colors blend in the physical world, such as when mixing pigments like paints or inks. In contrast, the additive color model describes how light produces color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a beam of white light, composed of three converging monochromatic sources\u2014red, green, and blue\u2014passes through a slit, it is decomposed into its constituent colors. This results in three distinct vertical bands\u2014red, green, and blue\u2014which are projected onto a screen.&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/the-science-of-light-from-white-to-rgb\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[483,32,33],"tags":[512,511,514,515,513],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-color","category-science","tag-additive","tag-color-mixing","tag-diffraction","tag-physics","tag-subtractive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1600"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1612,"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions\/1612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.giannisarcone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}