Talk:Red

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I moved the following sentence from the main article here:

In fact, both blood and the planet Mars get their reddish hue from oxidized iron (rust).

I am not sure this is correct. First of all, hemoglobin is red whether it contains oxygen or not. Second, if it contains oxygen, then it contains molecular oxygen (O2) and not oxydized iron. Could somebody with a firmer grasp on these things please confirm? --AxelBoldt

It's bit of an odd sentence, but it's dead right - and oxygen has little to do with it. Haemoglobin contains lots of iron (hence the "haemo", as in the iron ore "haematite") which makes it red - we use it to carry oxygen around our bodies, by bonding the O2 to the iron in the haemoglobin then stripping it off in the individual cells. Spiders have copper instead of iron in their blood, so it's blue. Mars is, verfiably, covered with ferric oxide. In both cases, it's the iron oxide that makes it red, not the oxygen alone. hope that clears things up. 82.109.186.194 11:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I think this is correct. Oxygen is bound to the Haem groups in haemoglobin chains to form oxyhaemoglobin (HbO8:

Hb + 4O2 -> HbO8

Although 'oxidized' may not be so chemically correct (I don't know about loss of electrons) they are loosely bound and not in the 02 form.

--- The forst photograph to illustrate RED is poor. It is not red. It may rlink to red in people's minds; but red it is not. If you want a red photo, I will find. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.232.119 (talk) 21:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


Do you think the original statement, claiming that blood is red because of oxidized iron, is correct, or that my statement above is correct? --AxelBoldt

original statemen -- sodium

Well, I don't understand your argument. What are you claiming actually causes the red colour of haemoglobin? As far as I know, haematite is red because of the Fe3+ ions. Haemoglobin (both oxy- and deoxy-) has Fe2+ ions - the iron is not oxidized by the binding of oxygen. Fe2+ ions cause a yellow-green colour, I think, so they can't be what makes haemoglobin red. Unless I've got something wrong here, the original statement is at best very misleading. --Zundark, 2001 Oct 8

The color of an ion depends on its environment. In aqueous solution ferric irons (Fe3+) are coordinated with six water molecules and have a yellow color rather than the reddish color of hematite, where they are coordinated with six oxide ions, while the anhydrous chloride is greenish. Fe2+ are green in aqueous solution but that doesn't say much, the presence of nitrogen and oxygen (only oxyhemoglobin is bright red) are going to affect the color significantly. The iron is definitely what is responsible, though, and most brightly colored compounds are made so by coordinated transition metals. Someday we should have an article on ligand field theory.

How about the following statement:

"Both the red color of Mars and the red color of blood are caused by an interaction of oxygen and iron."

That avoids the term "oxidization" which is not involved in hemoglobin if I understand it correctly. --AxelBoldt

Have some questions about this statement

  In most if not all human languages, "red" is the first color name 
  developed after "black" and "white."

I'm not sure what this means. Does it mean that ten thousand years ago, people only talked about black and white and then someone invented the word red? Or does it mean that babies learn to identify red after they identify black and white.

It's not obvious to me that we know enough about the development of language to make the first statement. If the second is true they it should be expanded.

Here's the story. I don't have a citation right wth me, but it's a fairly standard linguistic thing. A survey of a large number of languages revealed the following:
-All languages had terms for black and white.
-If a language had three terms, it had a term for red.
-If a language had four terms, it had a term for either yellow or green.
-If a language had five terms, it had terms for both yellow and green.
-If a language had six terms, it had a term for blue.
And so forth. I'll try to get a cite and expand on it - it could be an article. - montréalais
So red is just a color people tend to notice, (I think Red is one of the most noticable colors.) and then name. Its sensible from an evolutionary standpoint, blood is red (well, bleeding blood, anyway) and if blood is bleeding that's something generally beneficial to notice.

Although it's true that red is traditionally the color used on maps for the U.S. Republican party, it seems inconsistent to say this when the maps featured on Wikipedia use red for Democrats. Media:Image:ElectoralCollege2000.png I'm not sure how/if I should add this to the article, though, so I'm just tossing it out there. Rebrane

That's because it's not actually traditionally used for Republicans, unless by "traditionally" you mean "starting in the last 5 years". Before that it usually alternated between elections.

Contents

[edit] RGB coordinates for Red

What RGB coordinates do you think sound more natural to call "pure red"?? The reason most people like to say 255 0 0 is because of the R that stands for red. However, 255 0 128 is actually pure red, defining it as red that is totally neutral on the blue-yellow scale (the scale that defines blue and yellow.) Practice this:

Go to Microsoft PowerPoint. Upon seeing the first slide, edit the colors so that the background has RGB coordinates of 255 0 128. Then, draw a rectangle or oval and make the coordinates 255 0 0. Then, set the line settings for the rectangle and oval so that there is no line. You will see that the rectangle or oval is actually somewhat orange-ish and that the background is more pure red.

There is another version of this, which is to replace "red" with "green", "255 0" as the first 2 RGB coordinates with "0 255", and "orange-ish" with "lime-ish".

[edit] Now it says...

"The RGB coordinates of red are 255 0 0. Note that the red phosphor on CRT-based computer displays is slightly yellowish compared to a "peak" pure spectral red color: see metamerism."

True or false: the "peak" pure spectral red color is 255 0 128??

False, (255,0,0)RGB is defined as the color red on a monitor. If your monitor doesn't manage to show red at (255, 0, 0), you should recalibrate your monitor. Try adjusting the "color temperature" settings specifically. Photoshop has some excellent monitor calibration tools as well. Kim Bruning 21:05, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)


A discussion of metamerism wrt. CMYK might have been interesting, but it is not relevant to the RGB colorspace, since RGB is used for light sources themselves. Since I'd put in a nicer colorspace block, we can delete the paragraph entirely. Kim Bruning 21:15, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Please answer

  1. What are the RGB coordinates of crimson??
(220,20,60) make a good crimson, if crimson is correct.

You could have calculated that yourself, just looking at that page source.

  1. What are the RGB coordinates of scarlet??

66.32.126.20 21:16, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dunno, scarlet isn't defined on wikipedia, not at the moment at least. If you tell me what colors make up scarlet, I can probably tell you the right numbers. That or make yourself a user page, put where that page is on my talk, and I'll make you a sandpit so you can experiment with colors yourself. Will that too?

Kim Bruning 21:21, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

  • Yes, "scarlet" is mentioned at Wikipedia at the main red page. 66.32.126.20 21:23, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Seen it. I'm going to guess at (255,127,0) which should get you pretty close.

Use one of the many tools I have mentioned to you now to confirm that, or find a better scarlet. Do first make sure that your monitor is corectly calibrated. Kim Bruning 21:30, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

  1. What are the RGB coordinates of rust?--138.67.4.203 01:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of terms associated with the color red

At least some of these should be merged into this article. anthony (see warning) 22:31, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC) user

[edit] "Red" and "read"

The term "red" has also come to stand for an abbreviation of the word "read" and is being used as such by the current generation of high school and college students. The increasing popularity of what is now being referred to as "internet slang" furthermore provides for the possibility that use of the word "red" in place of "read" may become commonplace within the next few years.

What? I've never witnessed this. Nor have I heard about it. Nor red about it. ... ... D'oh! - furrykef (Talk at me) 08:45, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Eww. Red=blue?

Alright, I'm assuming this is vandalism-- "Red is the color of blue"... it made 0 sense to me... Matt Yeager 05:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Red and Malta Labour Party

Red is the colour of the Malta Labour Party a leading political party in Malta. Why was this entry removed Maltesedog 18:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why are magnets coloured RED?????

OK this is very confusing to me,and I not complaining anything about the article,but why magnets are generally coloured red is what I wanted to know...you may please inform me on spamthis@hotmail.com....

Good question. This article on old electromagnets points to the practice being very old, 1836 at least. Here's an even earlier one, from 1751. The North-seeking ends of magnetic compass needles have been painted red since time immemorial, perhaps because red paint was the brightest available. Then, when magnets were sold for other purposes, their north poles were painted red and their south poles white for identification. I guess that, when magnets were sold for uses where polarity was not important, the manufacturers didn't bother with the white paint and just painted the whole thing red. --Heron 20:42, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of incomplete list

I removed the section that contained the incomplete Shades, Tones, Tints, etc list, as what little info it contained was duplicated in different ways in other parts of the article. What was there is copied here, in case somebody wants to work on it.

Shades, Tones, Tints, etc

Shades Description Tones Description Tints Description Other Description
Maroon A darker shade of red that is much like brown Pink Lightish red. Rose As its name implies: A shade of red much like that of a rose. This shade is half pure red and half maroon Raspberry A shade of red that is a combination of purple and red with slightly more red
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

I also rearranged the article a bit, though nothing else was removed. -- moondigger 17:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Red Wavelength?

This page says, "Red light has a wavelength range of roughly 630-760 nm." However, if you follow the link from "630-760" that other page says "625-740 nm — wavelength of red light". So, which is the more accurate wavelength range for the color red, "630-760 nm" or "625-740 nm"? -- 70.20.235.230 23:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

-This is also true with initial paragraph and then graphic to the right. --169.232.89.120 09:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

There is not really an exact boundary between colors. It's a matter of perception. What one person sees as blue another sees as green. So neither is really more accurate.... though it probably would be good to use the same approximation within an article. I started added wavelengths and frequencies to the color boxes, but stopped when I couldn't decide what source to use. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Color#Spectral Colors PaleAqua 10:18, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In animated series

Is it notable enough to mention that red is sometimes the prefered hair colour for the leader of a team in animated series, and therefore connected to leadership? For example: Blossom from The Powerpuff Girls, Kim Possible from Kim Possible, Sam from Totally Spies!, Bloom from Winx Club, and Will from W.I.T.C.H.. Just saw a slight pattern, and wanted to see your opinion, that's all.T-borg 23:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

If you are the person who saw the pattern, this comes under Wikipedia:No original research. Notinasnaid 23:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Guess if there's no other proof you're right.T-borg 09:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Red is nowadays simply a color that represents leadership, first popularized by Power Rangers/Super Sentai. Keith from Voltron is the leader of the Voltron Force and wears a red uniform. In Powerpuff Girls, both Blossom and Brick, in addition to having red hair, wear both shades of red, although Brick's shade of red is darker to be more masculine. Andros 1337 02:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but if we can't provide sources, it's still original research, and I don't really know where we're going to find such.T-borg 13:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Red for Holy Thursday?

Red is not used in the Roman Catholic Church on Holy Thursday. Red is used for the Holy Spirit, the martyrs, and Jesus' Passion. Holy Thursday celebrates none of these, but rather the institution of the Holy Eucharist, for which white vestments are worn. Nor is it ever used for Easter time, white being the proper color for that season.70.161.209.90 04:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] infobox

The CMYK details in the infobox are displayed in the article as "0, 100, 0, 0" (magenta), though the source correctly indicates 100 for yellow. Strange. Or is it just me?--Jeffro77 10:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The current values are clearly wrong, but who says 0,100,100,0 is right? This is why Wikiproject Color is aiming to remove all CMYK values unless they are part of a standard. Notinasnaid 10:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, probably better to get rid of it completely. But 0,100,100,0 is at least a shade of red. Magenta just isn't red at all.--Jeffro77 10:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RGB and HSV values

Are these things really necessary in the color infoboxes? Are they accurate enough? Sure, while #FF0000 might be red, so is #AA0000,and even #110000, just not as bright(meaning not as many photons of that wavelength are being emitted). It is still red regardless. I'm not really for deleting things, but is there a good reason for having this? This is an article for the color "Red", I don't see why the computer application of colors seem to take a sort of dominance in them. Wikidan829 16:17, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Please join the debate at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Color. Notinasnaid 16:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] photography

Added a reference to red lighting being used in darkrooms as a safelight -- even though today we mostly use yellow/amber lights, the image of the photographer working in a deep red glow is well-established in film. I was a little surprised that it wasn't there, considering that there is a "photography" section. 67.158.111.66 21:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] please add wine red to this page

I have no idea about how to add colors. However, there is a color of red this article is missing. the color wine-red. It's actually a pretty popular color and the word was found in one dictionary [[1]] so I was surprised it wasn't in here. It's the color of many chairs and office equipment. Here's what it looks like [[2]] Thank you Maleman19 06:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wrad... your undo of my edit is ignorant.

yang = masculine, not feminine. If you continue undoing my edit, you are just showing your ignorance. --Naus (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Please don't be so rude. You don't have to threaten me. I just double checked my source and realized my mistake. However, Yang is yellow, not red. We need to change it to mention Yin, not Yang. Wrad (talk) 18:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I just changed it. Next time, rather than starting a discussion with a threat, you may want to WP:Assume good faith. You might find that it leads to a pleasanter exchange. Wrad (talk) 18:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I am most certainly not clueless. Look at the source here. At wikipedia, we rely on the sources. Wrad (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I just found another source claiming Yang is red and added that to the article. I guess we're both right. Wrad (talk) 19:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing phrase

In the "in other cultures" section: "Like most Central African cultures, the Ndembu see red as ambivalent, better than black, but not as good as red." I presume that the last "red" is wrong, but I don't have access to the source to check how. Can someone fix this? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 04:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Haha, oops. Fixed. Wrad (talk) 23:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Red from the union jack

The statement that red in the US and other countries flags comes from the Union Jack is unsubstantiated. It could be due to other reasons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.155.99.6 (talk) 20:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you name one country specifically mentioned that is wrong? The US is not, and "other countries" could mean anything. Wrad (talk) 23:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I just added a ref for the US Flag's connection to Britain. Believe me, it is not unsubstantiated. Wrad (talk) 00:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Representation?

I think in the column where Red is commonly represented at isn't being taken from a world POV. In many cases it also represents royalty (especially in East Asian cultures), should that be added? -76.172.54.29 (talk) 04:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

If you have a reference, yes, by all means. Wrad (talk) 04:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Political movements

Wouldn't it be appropriate to explain/mention the (seemingly backward) representation of Red States (Republican) vs. Blue States (Democratic)Red states and blue states as used by the news media in U.S. elections? Samatva (talk) 21:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

What makes it "seemingly backward?" -- Moondigger (talk) 21:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Red traditionally = left. I don't see any unusual significance in this particular color set, though. That's why I haven't added it. Wrad (talk) 00:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Photograph

I think it would be more correct to have a picture like that in the Blue article. What does everyone else think? Exec. Tassadar (comments, contribs)