#thedress

#thedress

images (1)

 

Everyone has seen the dress above. The dress first appeared on Tumblr then a group of girls posted it on Twitter asking if the dress was black and blue or gold and white with #thedress. Soon thousands of people commented on the dress and no one could come to an agreement. There are a few explanations for this, but the dress is black and blue.

images (2)Some say that you see the dress as certain colors based on your mood. For example if you are happy you see white and gold, and if you are depressed you see blue and black. However that is not the case. The science is actually very complicated, but in simple terms it is how your brain measures the light in the photo versus the light in the room or on the device you are on.  You see color is actually something are brain perceive, so what is red to me might be a dark orange to you. “Individual wavelengths don’t have color, it’s how our brains interpret the wavelengths that create color,”says Arthur Shapiro, a professor at American University who specializes in visual perception.Which is why some of us interpret those wavelengths to be blue and black, and others interpret the wavelengths as white and gold.

 

images (3)Here is a picture of the dress with the brightness increased, decreased and kept the same. If you look at the brightened image it is easy to see the white and cold compared to the original, and if you look at the dimmed picture it is easier to see the black and blues. Within the wavelengths there is also how people view colors based upon the light. Reena Garg, an ophthalmology professor, says cells in our eyes are light sensitive and help us tell the difference between color and shade. There are two different types of the cells, rods and cones. Rods are shade sensitive while cones are color sensitive. below is a picture of the dress with the brightness increased, decreased and kept the same. If you look at the brightened image it is easy to see the white and cold compared to the original, and if you look at the dimmed picture it is easier to see the black and blues.

Needless to say even though there are many other optical illusions like this dress, but none as difficult to understand than the dress that broke the internet.