The colour of infinity
There is a piece of orange and yellow damask covering the top of the sideboard in my dining room and on that are a few favourite ornaments including a silver bowl whose sides slope inwards and then outwards. The consequence of this is that the upper part of the bowl is reflected in the lower part ad infinitum. From the perspective of the dining table, the bowl appears to be not silver at all but a myriad of orange and yellow, apart from the oval point of infinite reflection which is matt black.
posted by Whispering Walls at 11:45 am
7 Comments:
All colours together are black. No colours at all are white.Or is it vice versa?
When I mixed my paint box I seem to remember that the resulting colour was a disgusting brown. Apparently if you pat marmite sufficiently, it turns white.
kinglear - it depends if you are talking about 'addition' or 'subtraction' - I'm never very good at my 'colour wheel' and was caught out on a pub quiz recently...
winchester - having read this latest post..go on, admit it, you are in the Tardis and are Doctor Who's future 'new assistant'...
Winchester - I really feel that you are wasted in your current career, as you are a one-woman-wikipedia.
I had never come across the 'turn marmite white' story until today.
And there is surprisingly little information about it on the internet.
A 'University of Bath' site purported to have proof, but all the pictures were blank images.
Another 'freaky' website was more help, and had the following science lesson instruction for proving the theory :-
APPARATUS: Small (but surprisingly expensive) jar of Marmite. A bowl. A fork. Lots of men with strong wrists.
They admit defeat in getting it to turn completely white...
"With the equipment (and wrists) at hand we did not manage to make the Marmite go white."
But all is not lost..
"Nevertheless reaching a state of gloss Barley White Dulux was enough to convince people..."
Your posts about your life are very interesting - but if you have any more gems like this - please do let us know, as there is not an easy way to uncover these things on the internet.
p.s. I actually think you are far more reliable than 'wikipedia' but you try saying 'one-woman-encyclopaedia' after a couple of drinks.. All the best,xx
A beautiful description of a beautiful object.
Do not leave it up to our imagination. Let's have a picture.
Eurodog - the flash would prevent a picture.
KL - you're right that the combination of all the colours in the spectrum is white
Anon - I read that bizarre fact about marmite in an interview with Snowdon who'd wanted to patent a marmite patting machine in his youth!
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