michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (03/05/87)
In article <467@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> wyatt@cfa.harvard.EDU (Bill Wyatt) writes: >What you say is correct, but be careful here - I'd say the main reason >the Sun seems white is that we (and our eyes) evolved under its >illumination - of course it seems the most balanced color! (i.e. white). This was the first thing that occurred to me. But I wonder--in the average scene, how much of the lighting is contributed directly by the sun (i.e. from the 1/2 degree across area the sun covers), and how much by the remainder of the sky (blue or clouded)? Note also that our eyes adapt their color sensitivity to the prevailing illumination--if you're walking in a green forest where you can't see the sky, so your illumination is highly filtered by the green foliage, you still perceive colors fairly accurately. (What was red in plain daylight still is, etc.) If you glimpsed the sun under those circumstances, what color would it appear? In other words, white is highly relative to the prevailing illumination; if your main light source is from the sun, then it probably looks white to you. Please note that I'm cross posting to sci.bio. -- Mike Maxwell Boeing Advanced Technology Center arpa: michaelm@boeing.com uucp: uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm