Timeline for An alien spaceship is predominantly "white" inside. What color does a human see this as?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 13, 2022 at 14:11 | comment | added | Jiří Baum | The inside of a spaceship will usually be illuminated by artificial or filtered light, so the colour will be in terms of that illumination; unless the humans bring their own light, much like shining a torch on a coral reef reveals vivid hues not visible in the water-filtered sunlight | |
| Sep 13, 2022 at 13:24 | vote | accept | Pranab | ||
| Sep 13, 2022 at 13:15 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | @JiříBaum Right, if you have a situation where you can compare against something else (lights with a different technology, natural sunlight), lights that look identical to alien eyes might be obviously different to human eyes. | |
| Sep 13, 2022 at 12:59 | comment | added | Jiří Baum | I've seen groups of fluorescent lights where some were continuous spectrum while others had distinct bands; entirely interchangeable for us, potentially completely different effect for aliens | |
| Sep 12, 2022 at 17:40 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | @Pranab Not really. It might have unusually strong spectral lines, either emission or absorption, but the majority of the emissions are going to be a black body spectrum, varying from blueish white at the hot end to reddish white at the cold end. The coolest red dwarf stars are about the same color as standard incandescent lamps. | |
| Sep 12, 2022 at 12:53 | comment | added | Pranab | Is it possible that the aliens' home star itself produces monochromatic or narrow-band light? | |
| Sep 11, 2022 at 22:09 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | @AlexP common fluorescents and RGB LED lights are particularly bad, but with the right phosphors white LEDs can get close. | |
| Sep 11, 2022 at 21:22 | comment | added | AlexP | "If the alien illumination system produces a reasonably accurate imitation of a sun's black body spectrum" . . . this means that the oh-so-far-advanced aliens use low-tech inefficient incandescent lamps. The fluorescent and LED lamps which are dominant around us do not produce anything even remotely resembling the spectrum of sun light; instead, they are optimized to produce the same color sensations in the minds of humans, completely disregarding the feelings of insects and birds. | |
| Sep 11, 2022 at 15:03 | history | answered | Christopher James Huff | CC BY-SA 4.0 |