April 20, 2024

Schrödinger Was Wrong: New Research Overturns 100-Year-Old Understanding of Color Perception

A brand-new mathematical representation has found that the line segments representing the range between extensively separated colors dont add up properly using the formerly accepted geometry. New research study corrects a significant error in the 3D mathematical space developed by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger and others to explain how your eye differentiates one color from another.” The assumed shape of color area needs a paradigm shift,” said Roxana Bujack, a computer scientist with a background in mathematics who creates scientific visualizations at Los Alamos National Laboratory. An accurate mathematical design of viewed color space is needed to create industry standards. Those are the colors signed up most highly by light-detecting cones on our retinas, and– not remarkably– the colors that blend to develop all the images on your RGB computer screen.

This visualization captures the 3D mathematical area used to map human color understanding. A brand-new mathematical representation has discovered that the line sections representing the distance between widely apart colors dont build up correctly utilizing the formerly accepted geometry. The research study contradicts long-held presumptions and will improve a variety of useful applications of color theory. Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory
A paradigm shift far from the 3D mathematical description developed by Schrödinger and others to describe how we see color might result in more lively computer screens, TVs, fabrics, printed materials, and more.
New research study remedies a substantial mistake in the 3D mathematical space established by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger and others to describe how your eye distinguishes one color from another. This incorrect design has actually been used by scientists and industry for more than 100 years. The research study has the potential to increase scientific information visualizations, enhance tvs, and recalibrate the fabric and paint industries.
” The assumed shape of color space needs a paradigm shift,” said Roxana Bujack, a computer scientist with a background in mathematics who creates clinical visualizations at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Bujack is lead author of the paper on the mathematics of color understanding by a Los Alamos group. It was released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

” Our research study reveals that the present mathematical design of how the eye views color differences is inaccurate. That design was recommended by Bernhard Riemann and established by Hermann von Helmholtz and Erwin Schrödinger– all giants in mathematics and physics– and showing one of them incorrect is basically the imagine a scientist.”
Modeling human color understanding makes it possible for automation of image processing, computer graphics, and visualization tasks.
A Los Alamos group fixes math that has actually been utilized by researchers, including Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger, to explain how your eye distinguishes one color from another.
” Our original idea was to establish algorithms to immediately enhance color maps for information visualization, to make them easier to interpret and understand,” Bujack stated. The research study group was shocked when they discovered they were the first to discover that the longstanding application of Riemannian geometry, which permits generalizing straight lines to curved surface areas, didnt work.
An accurate mathematical design of perceived color area is required to develop market standards. Those are the colors registered most strongly by light-detecting cones on our retinas, and– not surprisingly– the colors that mix to create all the images on your RGB computer screen.
In the research study, which integrates mathematics, biology, and psychology, Bujack and her coworkers found that using Riemannian geometry overestimates the understanding of large color distinctions. This is because human beings perceive a huge distinction in color to be less than the sum you would get if you accumulated small differences in color that lie between 2 extensively separated tones.
Riemannian geometry can not represent this result.
” We didnt expect this, and we dont understand the specific geometry of this new color area yet,” Bujack said. “We may be able to think about it generally but with an included dampening or weighing function that pulls cross countries in, making them much shorter. But we cant prove it yet.”
Reference: “The non-Riemannian nature of perceptual color area” by Roxana Bujack, Emily Teti, Jonah Miller, Elektra Caffrey and Terece L. Turton, 29 April 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.2119753119.
Funding: Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Los Alamos National Laboratory.