Which substance is whiter than white in 20 times? Is there a perfectly black color in nature? And what device will help with daltonism?
Do you know that the world is the most white? Starched shirt, freshly fallen snow, clean paper? Yes, all this is really white, but not as white as a new substance created by scientists from Cambridge University. It's hard to believe, but compared to him, a snow-white sheet of paper will seem dirty gray to you.
WHITER THAN WHITE
The new substance is 20 times whiter than all the materials known to us. On its creation, scientists pushed the so-called diamond beetles that live in Southeast Asia. The carapace of bugs is covered with the finest scales of chitin, the threads of which are woven into a complex network. Just such a "chitinous disorder" played a key role here. Super-white color is due to the structure, not the pigment. Experts copied the structure of the shell, using tiny threads of cellulose, and eventually got a very white membrane. The development is planned to be used to create incredibly bright paints and coatings of a new generation.
If in nature there was a perfectly white color, then somewhere must be perfectly black. Indeed, the discovery of biologists did not wait. It turns out that the wings of tropical birds of paradise absorb up to 99.9% of light - that is, more than any other known material.
DARKNESS NIGHTS
The most black material in the world is the structure of Vantablack. It resembles a vertical forest of carbon nanotubes, in which 99.8% of the light is lost. Until recently, it seemed, nothing closer and closer to such a blackness. But scientists drew attention to the absolutely black wings of a bird of paradise, a distant tropical relative of our sparrow. It turned out that the unique plumage absorbs almost 100% of the light. To see such a bird live, probably, amusing. It may seem that before you is a completely flat black spot - practically a portal to the parallel world.
Imagine that on a sunny summer day you are standing on the edge of a forest. How many bright colors around: greenery, sky, flowers! But the world is bright and colorful for everyone in different ways, no matter how strange it may sound. Even we can not be sure until the end that we perceive colors equally. What can we say about those who suffer from color blindness?
COLORED GLASSES
Color blindness is an inborn visual impairment caused by changes in the sensitivity of the retina photoreceptors. They are responsible for the perception of color. To combat this disease, New Zealand and Japanese engineers developed glasses of augmented reality. Before each lens there is a light splitter. He misses most of it in the direction of the eye, and the rest reflects on the camera. Analyzing the real colors of the environment, the augmented reality is adjusted and changes the shades in such a way that the user can see the real picture.
It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci and Rafael distinguished about 4 million color shades. According to scientists, the average person discerns about 1 million. This is easier for women than for men, so arguing with the wife about the color of the costume is almost meaningless.
The illustrations are used in agreement with the Depositphotos photobank
