“Don’t breathe air, it has sharks in it! BLUE HAS SHARKS IN IT!” -The funny purple man
Comment on That's just science
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
I liked a version of this (I believe) XKCD said once.
A perfectly valid response to the question, “why is the sky blue?” is simply, “because air is blue.”
Yes, you can give a lot of explanation about refractive index and Rayleigh scattering. But all this does is provide details of how light interacts with air. And the same reason anything is the color that it is is due to the way it reflects, transmits, or absorbs light. You’re citing real scientific principles, but you’re ultimately just explaining why air is blue.
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
“Don’t breathe air, it has sharks in it! BLUE HAS SHARKS IN IT
???
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
It’s a two minute comedy bit.
senseamidmadness@lemmygrad.ml 2 weeks ago
“BLUEBERRIES ARE FUCKING PURPLE!”
tetris11@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
But it’s an incomplete answer.
“air is invisible at short distances, blue at longer distances, and takes on red green and orange at unset” would be better
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
The same is true for all colors. Tell me the color of a single atom.
Yes, air can be colors other than blue at unusual light conditions, like sunset. But the same is true for any material.
You’re stuck on the urge to explain. You call “the air is blue” incomplete. But all answers are incomplete. When someone asks what color an object is, they mean under ordinary distances and conditions. Air is blue even in an ordinary room. It just takes miles worth of air for its slight blue color to be noticeable.
SystemDisc@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Most physical objects I encounter are the same color up close that they are far away…
Donkter@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If a leaf was broken up into microscopic bits and flung into the air you wouldn’t be able to determine what color it was either. So at best the thing thats missing is that there’s a lot less air.
ignominous_wombat@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
It’s about density. Think of a single strand of webbing from a spider versus a thick, established spider web, or a single drop of blue food colouring in a bathtub of water.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
What is the color of a carbon atom?
HereIAm@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Would you also say a mirror is green? Or a glass of water is blue? Windows are a greenish hue? Shaving foam is blue?
brown567@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Better question: “Why is the sky usually blue but sometimes red?”
Talking specifically about sunsets, not apocalyptic wildfire smoke
SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Incidentally it’s the same reason between a sunset and smoke - more scattering.
bullsworth@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
It’s a very good relevant XKCD.
The title text is more directly applicable: If you ask “why are leaves green?” the usual answer is “because they’re full of chlorophyll, and chlorophyll is green,” even though “why does chlorophyll scatter green light?” is a great question too.