Question for the nerds, engineers, scientists and the generally curious.

[billyskank]

Has anyone ever made a brown light? I've never seen one. Is it possible? And if not, why not?

[Deja Q]

1. Brown is ugly and reminds me of the Atari 800, that's why

[billyskank]

2. Agreed on the aesthetics, but that wasn't my question.

If there was such a thing as a brown light, surely everyone would have had them in the seventies?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear billy!

How nice to see you, sweetie!

And what is a brown light?

I have no idea!

:shrug:

:hug:

[billyskank]

6. Hi Peggy

You know, a lamp which emits a brown hue. We seem to have lights that make all other colours.

:hi:

[NightWatcher]

4. forget brown light, what's the brown noise?

[billyskank]

5. Oh, I know what brown noise is. I make it all the time.

;)

[pokerfan]

7. With an RGB LED you can make any color you want

http://physics.nist.gov/Divisions/Div844/facilities/vision/color.html

[billyskank]

8. So nobody goes in for brown leds?

It could be the new thing! Blue leds are so yesterday!

[pokerfan]

11. Brown is such an ugly color

Excepting eyes, of course.

[DeepBlueC]

23. amber is gorgeous

that is brown.

[pokerfan]

27. I thought amber was a shade of orange

[XemaSab]

9. I've seen brown lampshades

:D

[billyskank]

10. I think that almost qualifies

since a brown light made from a regular bulb would almost certainly have a brown filter, which is almost the same thing. But the idea of a brown led in particular intrigues me.

:hi:

[Critters2]

12. In answer to your question...not a clue. But more importantly,

it's great to see you! I was just wondering where and how you are! :hi:

[billyskank]

13. Hiya critters!

Nice to see you too. :hi:

[Critters2]

14. How are things on your side of the pond?

I've been doing genealogy, and it turns out most of my ancestors come from your neck of the woods...well, north of your neck of the woods, but the same big island.

[billyskank]

17. Personally, okay.

The newspapers are all full of doom and gloom, but the economic problems haven't hit me personally yet. The sun still rises every morning and life doesn't show any signs of coming to an end soon.

I've no idea where my ancestors come from. Probably here and other parts of Europe.

[Critters2]

19. The economic stuff hasn't really hit me either. One parishioner

has been laid off, but is nearing retirement and has a pension, so doesn't seem too upset.


So many of my ancestors are Scots, as it turns out, that I ought to bleed plaid.

[Inchworm]

15. Don't forget to change your clocks

Do they do that tonight where you are?

A li'l off topic, but you asked for the curious ;)

:hi:

[billyskank]

16. I know, what a pain in the arse

my clock says 11:25 but really I should think of it as half past midnight. Damn.

:hi:

[mainegreen]

18. Hell, most lights are a little brown anyways.

Real fully white lights look like hell. It's an assault on the senses.

[billyskank]

20. Yeah my mum has a couple of CFL bulbs that have the (cheap) white hue

They are similar to the hue of natural sunlight, but the trouble is that they're like a thousand times less intense than real sunlight and so the room looks quite bleak in them. I notice now that they are making CFL bulbs that match the hue of old tungsten bulbs, because the reddish light is actually more restful and pleasant.

[eppur_se_muova]

21. "Amber" lights are orange-brown -- used in darkrooms.

When you needed to turn the lights on for just a little bit, without ruining your film (see Wikipedia to understand what "film" was).

Cheap amber light: drop a wide-mouth amber jar over a white bulb.

[billyskank]

22. I'm 32. I'm old enough to know what film is.

:)

[DeepBlueC]

24. call it amber and people will think much differently about it

The only reason I can think of that one does not see is that brown may not be a good color for outdoor illumination at least because there is so much brown in nature that it would tend to blur out edges and generally make many things less distinct. Indoors I'd go for amber myself, very atmospheric, but brown light might just look like less light. On the other hand they do make brown lenses for sunglasses so there must be some desirable optical qualities.

[Schema Thing]

25. I remember having this question back when I "made" colors

... dialing in Cyan Magenta and Yellow to create slides for slide show presentations. And basically, I was "making" the light of a particular color.


As I recall, I tried to create brown, and couldn't do it. I suspect it's because brown must need some black in it to look brown.

I do remember a darkroom safelight lens from Kodak that had a very brown look to it when viewing it with reflected light, but I think it just looked yellowy orange when you were actually using it in a darkroom.

[underpants]

26. made a brown light?.... you obviously didn't see how bad Cleveland was last year