While dressing by dawn's early light, I picked up jeans that I'd
dropped on the floor while undressing in the dark the previous
evening. Something black lay crumpled under them. ?? -- I'd hung up
all my black garments, what could this be? A closer look revealed a
white line against the black, and I realized that it was a bright-red
T-shirt with an outline map of Indiana printed on the back.

Red makes you stand out in a crowd, but it turns black at sunset, and
even in bright daylight, red isn't all that visible from a distance.

Orange is famous for visibility.

My spouse and I used to wear matching orange T-shirts on organized
rides. He was easily visible to the casual glance on a hilltop a good
mile away.

Once, when I was a passenger on a multi-day drive on I 90, a fleck of
orange at the edge of a woods in the distance caught my eye. Careful
observation revealed that it was a hunter in a blaze-orange vest
walking toward me. He was far enough away to stay in sight for quite
a while and I had nothing to do, so I watched him. Something seemed
odd about the way he moved; eventually I realized that he was paying
attention to something to his right. I looked at the focus of his
attention and managed to make out a hunter in a bright red vest.

Orange is required by law in a great many places because tests have
shown that it's the most-visible color -- but only in bright daylight
when seeing isn't much of a problem. At twilight, orange is
indistinguishable from khaki.

Yellow is my default.

By day, yellow is second only to orange. At night, yellow is almost
as visible as white and much less likely to be mistaken for a shred of
fog or a reflection off a wet leaf. And yellow is the only color that
can shine through rain and fog, hence its frequent use in raincoats
and firemen's turnout gear.

Green is the color to which the human eye is most sensitive, and green
can be perceived as colored far later into dusk than any other color.
"Slime green" *does* stand out on a city street, and I admired the
visibility of a lime-green jersey I once followed through the
Voorheesville "tunnel" in my car.

But we evolved sensitivity to green because there is a *lot* of green
around. Once, looking out an airplane window, I saw a column of
smoke. Trash-burning or disaster? I could see flames, but from
nearly straight overhead I couldn't see what was burning. A thread of
white against the flames: ah, someone is trying to put it out. I
followed the stream of water to see who, and saw a lime-green fire
engine. It didn't contrast with the grass-green vegetation at all
well. I don't think I'd prefer a lime-green jersey for a ride in the
country.


I don't think anybody has ever proposed blue or violet as a visible
color. Pity, because they are right purty -- but purple doesn't wash.
That is, when it fades, even a tiny little bit, it looks dirty.

A light shade of any color beats the deleted out of black.



--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.