The Physics and Psychology of Colour - with Andrew Hanson

The Royal Institution
The Royal Institution
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Published 2018-07-04
Our experience of colour is a based on the physics of light, but Andrew Hanson uses demos and optical illusions to show that there is a lot more to colour than meets the eye.
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Colour informs, influences consumer choices, warns us and comforts us. But how do we ascribe numbers to a human perception which is incredibly versatile and variable? Andrew Hanson will elaborate on his own work in the field of colour measurement.

For 25 years Andrew Hanson has been professionally measuring colour, from evaluating the appearance of ornamental plants, to building the world’s first national standards telespectroradiometer to calibrate the colour of visual display units and a machine to measure the shininess of cats. He is currently Outreach Manager and Occasional Senior Scientist at the National Physical Laboratory, the UK’s National Measurement Institute and is past Chairman of the Colour Group of Great Britain.

This talk was filmed in the Ri on 19 March 2018.

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All Comments (21)
  • @DANGJOS
    Literally the most fascinating talk I've listened to on here!
  • @RainbowDevourer
    Yes, color and light and stuff. Can we talk about that fabulous jacket and shirt now? (I did watch the video and found it compelling, for the record)
  • @mathisawesome618
    Wow really cool way of connecting the start and end of the presentation and wrapping it all up
  • @peymanali922
    Very fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for your insight.
  • @NathanOkun
    Actually, he only talked about a small part of this mind-sensor mess. What your eyes see can change what your ears hear! This is how ventriloquists do their thing. You see their own mouths very still, but the puppet's mouth moving a lot, so your brain automatically moves the center of your hearing system to the puppet. This can even change the sounds that you think you hear, since a human mouth makes certain sounds when moving certain ways, so your brain will sometimes overlay the actual sounds with those sounds that it thinks that the mouth moving like that HAS TO have generated; that is, you get two different sounds when you open or close your eyes when staring at a talking face with the audio portion of the image different from the video portion of the image -- AND YOU CAN'T FIX THIS!! This can create some very scary effects that make you think you have gone crazy.
  • @jasp9661
    That was an amazing presentation, very well done - good job!
  • @mgurney88
    Fantastic lesson Andrew! Thank you for sharing.
  • @MN-sc9qs
    The orange and grape illusion is amazing!
  • @RUFeelin
    Just brilliant. I want more. Where is part two!!!
  • @luvisacigarette8
    Fantastic talk; fantastic speaker. Does anyone know if there was a Q&A for this session? I couldn't locate it on youtube :(