为什么有这么多颜色？

但为什么说这是挺棒的一年呢？

But why had a pretty cool year?

我们学习了颜色、糖果、马、火山、冰川、牡蛎。

We learned about colors, candy, horses, volcanoes, glaciers, oysters.

梅西感恩节大游行、野火烟雾、海鹦、英语、数学、辛辣食物、防晒霜、马蹄蟹。

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, wildfire smoke, Puffins, English Language, Math, Spicy Food, Sunscreen, Horseshoe Crabs.

海象、海狮、亚当斯、唱片、塔可关税、绦虫和山猫。

Walruses, Sea Lions, Adams, Records, Tacos Tariffs, Tapeworms, and Wildcats.

而这只是其中一年的节目内容。

And that was just one year of shows.

我们在2026年会做什么，真的取决于你们。

What we do in 2026 really depends on you.

今年七月，我们的电台佛蒙特公共广播因联邦公共媒体资金被取消而损失了200万美元。

In July, our station, Vermont Public, lost $2,000,000 when federal funding for public media was taken away.

在可预见的未来，我们将失去联邦资金，因此听众的支持比以往任何时候都更加重要。

We'll be without federal funds for the foreseeable future, so support from our listeners is more important than ever.

像您这样的听众的捐赠有助于维持《小屁孩》节目持续运行，并让全球的孩子们免费收听。

Contributions from listeners like you help keep Butt going and freely available to kids everywhere.

如果您有能力，请考虑捐赠以支持我们的节目。

If you're able, please consider making a gift to support our show.

您可以一次性捐赠任意金额，也可以加入我们的《小屁孩》粉丝俱乐部。

You can make a one time gift in any amount, or you can join our But Why fan club.

会员资格每月仅需7美元起。

Membership start just at $7 per month.

请前往 butwhykids.org/donate 在今天完成您的捐赠，谢谢。

Head to butwhykids.org slash donate to make your gift today, and thanks.

这是《小屁孩》？

This is But Why?

这是来自佛蒙特公共广播为好奇的孩子们制作的播客。

A podcast for curious kids from Vermont public.

我是简·林德霍尔姆。

I'm Jane Lindholm.

在本节目中，我们会收集像你一样充满好奇的孩子们提出的问题，并找到答案。

On this show, we take questions from curious kids just like you, and we find answers.

你最喜欢的颜色是什么？

What's your favorite color?

颜色无处不在。

Colors are all around us.

当你走进一个房间时，如果你视力正常，可能会注意到墙壁涂成了黄色、灰色、白色、米白色、蛋壳白或奶油白。

When you walk into a room, if you're a sighted person, you might notice that the walls are painted in yellow, gray, or white, or off white, or eggshell white, or creamy white.

早上挑选袜子时，你会根据心情选择不同颜色的一双吗？

When you pick out your socks in the morning, do you grab a different colored pair depending on your mood?

心情激动时选红色，大胆时选紫色？

Red if you're feeling feisty, purple if you're feeling bold?

花朵有着各种鲜艳的色彩，如果你曾仔细观察过一只雌性红衣主教鸟，就会看到它从琥珀色的胸部到柔和的灰棕色背部，再到头顶一簇红色羽毛，呈现出美妙的棕色与金色渐变。

Flowers come in all kinds of striking hues, and if you've ever looked at a female cardinal, you'll see the most beautiful gradations of brown and gold, from her amber colored chest to her soft gray brown back and a tuft of red at the crest of her head.

我们收到了很多关于颜色的问题，这并不奇怪，因为颜色真的无处不在。

We've gotten lots of questions from you about color, and that's not surprising because colors really are everywhere.

我叫埃莉诺，八岁了，来自佐治亚州，再过一个月就九岁了。

My name is Eleanor, and I'm eight years old, nine from Georgia.

颜色是从哪里来的？

And where do colors come from?

我叫汉娜。

My name is Hannah.

我来自密歇根州底特律。

I'm from Detroit, Michigan.

我六岁。

I'm six years old.

颜色是从哪里来的？

Where do colors come from?

让我们先谈谈当我们说‘颜色’时，指的是什么。

Let's first talk about what we mean when we say color.

颜色与光有着密切的关系。

Color has a lot to do with light.

当光照射到物体上时，该物体会吸收某些波长的光，同时反射其他波长的光。

When light shines on an object, that object absorbs certain wavelengths of light and reflects other ones.

物体的材质决定了哪些波长被吸收，哪些波长被反射。

The material the object is made out of determines what wavelengths are absorbed and which ones are reflected.

我们的眼睛只能看到从物体表面反射或弹回的光，而不是被吸收的光，我们的大脑会将这些反射回来的波长解读为不同的颜色。

Our eyes only see the light that has reflected or bounced off the object, not the light that is absorbed, and our brain interprets those wavelengths that have bounced off as different colors.

例如，假设你有一个熟透的草莓。

For example, let's say you have a nice ripe strawberry.

草莓的表皮吸收了蓝光和绿光，将红光反射回你的眼睛。

The strawberry's skin is soaking up blue and green wavelengths and bouncing the red light back to your eyes.

因此，你看到的草莓是红色的。

So you see that strawberry as red.

但是

But

怎么

how do

我们怎么知道我们的大脑都是以相同的方式解读这种红色的呢？

we know if our brains are all interpreting that red color the same way?

来自印度喀拉拉邦的11岁孩子米塔提出了一个问题。

Mitha, who's 11 from Kerala, India, has a question.

我们怎么知道我们看到的红色、黄色或蓝色是一样的呢？

How do we know if we are seeing the same red, yellow, or blue?

我们可能看到的是不同的颜色，却都称之为红色。

We could be seeing different colors and calling them all red.

要解开这个巨大的谜团，我们需要首先理解我们是如何感知颜色的。

To tackle this big mystery, we need to understand how we perceive color in the first place.

在我们眼睛的后部，有一层薄薄的视网膜，其中特殊的神经细胞——感光细胞帮助我们看见事物。

In the back of our eyes, there's a thin layer called the retina, where special nerve cells called photoreceptors help us see.

感光细胞主要有两种类型：视杆细胞，它们在极低光照下工作，帮助我们分辨明暗层次；以及视锥细胞，它们主要用于感知颜色。

There are two main types of photoreceptors, rods, which work at very low levels of light and help us see different shades of light, and cones, which are primarily what we use to see color.

大多数人拥有三种类型的视锥细胞，分别专门感知蓝光、绿光和红光。

Most people have three types of cone photoreceptors specialized to detect blue, green, or red light.

但对我们感知事物和识别颜色而言，仅仅眼睛重要是不够的。

But it's not just our eyes that are important for our ability to see things and identify colors.

你的大脑负责处理眼睛接收的所有信号。

It's your brain's job to process all these signals your eyes receive.

你的大脑不仅解读眼睛传来的信号，让你知道看到了什么颜色，还会将这些颜色与情感和经历联系起来。

Not only does your brain interpret the signals from your eyes to let you know what colors you're seeing, but it also then associates those colors with feelings and experiences.

为了继续这个话题，让我们请出我们的特别嘉宾。

For this part of the conversation, let's bring in our special guest.

我是卡西娅·辛克莱尔，是一名作家。

I am Cassia Sinclair, and I am a writer.

卡西娅是《色彩的隐秘生活》一书的作者。

Cassia is the author of a book called The Secret Lives of Color.

她长期以来一直对颜色着迷。

She's been fascinated by color for a long time.

小时候，卡西娅的母亲是一名花商，因此她放学后经常待在花店，观察花束中哪些颜色搭配在一起，以及哪些花卉在特定场合最受欢迎。

When she was a kid, Cassia's mom was a florist, so she spent a lot of time at the flower shop after school, observing what kinds of colors go together in a bouquet of flowers and what types of flowers are popular for certain occasions.

当卡西娅成年后，她决定学习并撰写关于颜色的内容。

When Cassia became an adult, she decided to learn and write about colors.

事实上，她写了一整本书来探讨颜色。

In fact, she wrote a whole book about them.

卡西娅的研究聚焦于我们如何思考颜色，以及颜色如何获得不同的文化含义。

Cassia's work focuses on the ways we think about colors and how they take on different cultural meanings.

我们感知颜色的过程，其中很大一部分发生在我们的大脑中。

The process of how we see color, an awful lot of it takes place in our brains.

这意味着，即使每个人的眼睛结构相似，但大脑内部发生的活动却可能大不相同，并且会受到我们个人经历的深刻影响。

And that means that even if the architecture of everyone's eyes is similar, what's happening in the brain, kind of behind the scenes, can be very different and can be really influenced by our own experiences.

举个例子，假设你小时候的卧室墙壁是蓝色的，而你非常喜爱自己的卧室，那么你此后一生都可能对蓝色产生非常积极的联想。

So for example, imagine if you grew up in a bedroom and the walls of your bedroom were painted blue and you loved your bedroom, forever after you might have really positive associations about the colour blue.

但另一个人对蓝色的感受可能会截然不同。

Now someone else might feel very differently about blue.

他们可能会将蓝色与在学校时感到极度尴尬的时刻联系起来，而那个房间的墙壁也是蓝色的。

They might associate it with a time they got really embarrassed at school and the walls of that room were blue.

所以你对颜色的体验会非常不同。

So your experience of colour will be very different.

另一点是，不是每个人的眼睛都一样。

And the other thing is that not everyone's eyes are the same.

很多人患有色盲或色觉缺陷。

Lots of people have something that's called colour blindness or color vision deficiency.

因此，你对颜色的感知可能会略有不同。

And so you might perceive color slightly differently.

这种情况在男孩和男性中比在女性中更常见，因为控制我们视力的DNA片段位于女性比男性更常拥有的那部分DNA上。

And that's a lot more common in boys and men than it is in women because the parts of our DNA which are responsible for our eyesight are encoded in the part of the DNA that is more present for women than it is for men.

现在，随着技术的发展，已经开始出现矫正色觉的手段。

And as technology is now emerging to correct color vision.

因此，如果你有色盲，现在可以佩戴特制眼镜，帮助你更好地感知原本难以分辨的颜色。

So if you do have color blindness, there are now kind of glasses that you can put on that can allow you to better perceive the colors that you might have naturally struggled with.

在我家，我们经常为蓝色和紫色的区别争论，我和女儿认为某些东西绝对是紫色的。

In my family, we have arguments about the difference between blue and purple, and some things that my daughter and I say, that is absolutely purple.

这毫无疑问，是紫色。

It's no question, it's purple.

然后我儿子和他爸爸会说，你在开玩笑吗？

And then my son and his dad will say, are you kidding?

那是蓝色，根本不可能是紫色。

That's blue, there's no way it's purple.

离紫色差得远呢，就是蓝色，就这么简单。

It's not even close to purple, it's just blue, and that's all there is to it.

我们各自坚持己见，永远无法达成一致。

And we can sit in our corners and never agree on that.

我们根本无法确定，是我们大脑看到的东西不同，还是我们本质上看到的是同一种颜色，只是归类方式不同？

And it's impossible for us to tell, are we seeing different things with our brains, or are we seeing the same color fundamentally, and we just think of it in different categories?

这总是我们之间一场有趣的争论，因为它清楚地展现了我们的大脑如何以不同方式感知和解读事物。

And it's always kind of a fun fight for us because it's just clear how different our brains see things and how differently we interpret things.

但我们不知道，这是大脑中的生理差异，还是仅仅因为我们对分类方式的理解不同。

But we don't know whether it's something physical in our brains or just in the way we think about what category it is.

每个人看到颜色的方式都如此神秘。

It's so mysterious how each in person sees color.

我喜欢这种种神秘感。

I love that there's all this this mystery.

我认为这使它成为一个非常棒的研究主题。

I think it makes it such a great topic to to study.

你好。

Hi.

我叫伊芙琳。

My name is Evelyn.

我八岁了。

I'm eight years old.

我住在加利福尼亚州的斯科茨谷。

I live in Scotts Valley, California.

为什么狗看不到那么多颜色，而人类却可以？

Why are, like, dogs can't see that many colors but humans can?

为什么不同动物的视力不一样？

And why is vision for different animals different?

你好，Boat Y。

Hi, Boat Y.

我叫苏珊娜。

My name is Susanna.

我住在阿肯色州，今年10岁。

I live in Arkansas, and I'm 10 years old.

为什么狗看到的颜色和人类不一样？

Why do dogs see different colors than humans?

我们说过，大多数人视网膜上有三种视锥细胞，帮助我们感知不同颜色。

We said that most people have three types of cones in our retinas that help us detect different colors.

狗只有两种，所以它们看到的颜色比我们少。

Dogs have only two, so they see fewer colors than we do.

狗很难区分红色和其他颜色，但它们能看到蓝色和黄色。

Dogs can't really distinguish red from other colors, but they can see blue and yellow.

所以，如果你曾经看过一只狗在绿草地上找红色球时很困难，那可能是因为在它们眼中，红色在绿色草地上并不突出。

So if you've ever seen a dog having trouble finding a red ball in a green field, that's probably because the red doesn't stand out against the green grass in their eyes.

它们看起来都像是差不多的泥棕色调。

They all look like kind of the same shades of muddy brown.

但话说回来，我的狗在嗅觉和听觉上比我强多了。

But then again, my dog can smell and hear things way better than I do.

而且狗在黑暗中的视力也比我们好。

And dogs can see better in the dark than we can.

所以我想，有得就有失。

So I guess you win some, you lose some.

你知道吗，有些动物实际上拥有比狗或人类更宽广的颜色感知范围。

You know, some animals actually have a much wider range of color reception than dogs or us humans.

比如鸟类，它们的眼睛有四种视锥细胞，而我们人类只有三种。

Birds, for example, are known to have four types of cones, those color sensitive receptors in their eyes where we have three.

蝴蝶则有五种。

Butterflies have five.

而螳螂虾拥有12到16个光感受器，甚至能看见红外线和偏振光。

And mantis shrimp have 12 to 16 photoreceptors and can even see infrared and polarized light.

想象一下，如果你能看见更多颜色或更多波长的光，世界会是什么样子，这很有趣。

It's fun to imagine what the world would look like if you had the ability to see even more colors or more wavelengths of light.

世界可能会看起来非常不同。

The world might look very different.

我们接下来还会回答更多关于颜色的问题，比如颜色是如何得名的，白色算不算一种颜色？

We have more color questions coming up, including how do colors get their names and is white a color?

这里是《但为什么》。

This is But Why.

我是简·林德霍尔姆，今天我们将与卡西娅·斯

I'm Jane Lindholm, and today we're talking with Cassia St.

克莱尔对话，她是《色彩的隐秘生活》一书的作者。

Clair, author of The Secret Lives of Color.

她将回答你们关于色彩的各种问题。

She's answering your colorful questions.

你好。

Hi.

我叫弗蕾亚。

I'm Freya.

我六岁了。

I'm six years old.

颜色是怎么被发明的？

And how is colors invented?

我叫帕克。

My name is Parker.

我六岁了。

I'm six years old.

我住在阿拉巴马州的伯明翰。

I live in Birmingham, Alabama.

谁发现了颜色？

Who discovered color?

颜色一直都在那里。

Color has kind of always been around.

只要有光，就有颜色，因为颜色实际上是我们感知从其他物体上反射出来的光的波长的方式。

As long as there's been light, there's been color because color is really how we perceive wavelengths of light that bounce off of other objects.

但除此之外，还有我们思考和谈论颜色的方式。

But beyond that, there's also the way we think and talk about color.

人类找到了许多制造颜料的方法，这样我们就能拥有不同颜色的玩具、衣服、蜡笔和颜料。

And humans have found lots of ways to make pigments so we can have different colored toys and clothes and crayons and paints.

颜色来自许多不同的地方。

Colors come from lots of different places.

是你用管装颜料画画的那种颜料吗？

Is it a paint that you have in a tube that you paint a picture with?

还是你用来粉刷墙壁的颜料？

Or is it a paint that you put on the wall of your house?

或者是一件毛衣或一条裤子的颜色？

Or is it a colour of a jumper or a pair of trousers?

所有这些颜色都来自略有不同的地方，而今天大多数我们使用颜色都是在工厂里制造的。

All of those colours will come from slightly different places and Most of the time today, the colours that we use will be made in a factory.

它们是不同种类的化学物质的组合，科学家们将这些物质以不同的方式混合在一起，从而创造出新的东西。

They will be combinations of different kinds of chemicals, substances that scientists work with and put them together in different combinations and they create something new.

但在过去，比如两百年前及更早的时候，人们通常不会用化学物质来制造颜色。

But in the olden days, maybe two hundred years ago and before then, people weren't generally using chemicals to make colour.

有时他们也会用，但更多时候他们是利用自然界中随处可见的天然颜色。

Or they sometimes were, but more often they were using the colours that are found naturally in the world around us.

实际上，这类天然颜色非常多。

There are actually quite a lot of those.

土壤中就有颜色，因此根据你居住的地方，你可能走出去就能注意到土壤有不同的颜色。

There are colours in the soil, so depending on where you live you might be able to go outside and notice that the soil is different colours.

你可能找到颜色的其他地方是昆虫身上。

The other places where you might find colour are in insects.

许多昆虫都能产生颜色。

So lots of insects create colour.

或者蜗牛，海蜗牛也能产生颜色。

Or indeed snails, sea snails create colour.

我是埃琳娜，我八岁了。

I'm Elena and I'm eight years old.

我来自加拿大阿尔伯塔省。

I'm from Alberta, Canada.

世界上有多少种颜色？

How many colors are in the world?

我叫阿德森。

My name is Addison.

我住在宾夕法尼亚州的米尔福德。

I live in Milford, Pennsylvania.

世界上有多少种颜色？

How many colors are in the world?

嗨，我叫吉吉。

Hi, my name is Gigi.

我九岁了。

I'm nine years old.

我住在俄克拉荷马州的桑德斯普林斯。

I live in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

为什么有这么多不同的颜色？

Why are there so many different colors?

对于这个问题，有几种不同的思考方式。

There are a couple of different ways to think about this question.

科学家说，人类的眼睛可以看到数百万种不同的颜色渐变。

Scientists say humans can see millions of distinct color gradations with our eyes.

但还有一种看待它的方式，涉及颜色在我们思维和文化中的存在方式。

But there's also another way of looking at it that has to do with how colors exist in our minds and our cultures.

卡西娅说，这个数字是无限的。

And Cassia says that number is infinite.

事实上，颜色的数量是永恒的。

The truth is that the number of colors that there are is everlasting.

我们遍布世界各地，无论你身在何处，都会以新的方式思考颜色。

We're all over the world and no matter where you are in the world, you'll be thinking about colors in new ways.

这种认知甚至可能在你的一生中发生变化。

That can change even over the course of your lifetime.

所以，例如，我现在40岁了。

So, for example, I'm now 40 years old.

我小时候，'牛油果绿'这个颜色有着非常特定的含义。

When I was growing up, the color 'avocado green' had a really specific meaning.

它被认为是过时的，是20世纪70年代曾经非常流行的颜色。

It was seen as really old fashioned and a color that had been really fashionable in the 1970s.

但如今，牛油果绿的含义略有不同，因为世界已经发生了细微的变化。

But now, avocado green means something a bit different because the world has changed slightly.

牛油果现在更多地与年轻人联系在一起，比如牛油果吐司，这可能是你早餐或午餐时未必喜欢的食物。

Avocados have become much more associated with really young people, with avocado toast which is something that you may may not enjoy for your breakfast or your lunch.

也许十年后，这不会再是你首先想到的事情。

And maybe in ten years time that won't be one of the first things you think about.

这个过程一直在持续发生。

And that process is happening all the time.

我们一直在以新的方式思考颜色。

We're constantly thinking about colors in new ways.

我叫艾伦。

My name is Alan.

我六岁了。

I am six years old.

我住在纽约的布里斯特。

I live in Brewster, New York.

颜色是怎么得名的？

How do colours get their names?

这其实涉及两种过程。

So there's kind of two processes that happen.

有一种官方的过程，比如一家生产房屋或汽车油漆的公司可能会创造一种新颜色，然后坐在办公室里思考如何最好地为它命名。

There's a kind of official process, by which I mean a company, for example, a company that makes paint for your house or paint for your car might create a new colour and then they'll sit in an office and think about how best to name it.

例如，如果一家指甲油公司在圣诞节期间推出一种新的红色指甲油，他们可能会希望名称既能体现红色，又能让人联想到圣诞节。

So for example, if a nail polish company is creating a new red polish at Christmas time, they would probably want the name to indicate the redness of the colour but they probably also want a name that is suggestive of Christmas.

因此，他们可能会将其命名为‘圣诞老人的斗篷’，但同样的颜色如果在五月或六月发布，可能会突然拥有一个完全不同的名字。

And so they might call it Santa's Cape for example, but the exact same colour if it's being released in May or June and it might have a very different name all of a sudden.

它可能会被叫做‘苹果红’之类的名称。

It might be Apple Red or something like that.

但你同样会遇到一种更开放的过程，在这个过程中，普通人并不会直接参与命名的协商。

But you also again have this kind of more open process by which people, ordinary people, aren't negotiating the names themselves.

一个很好的例子是‘猩红’这种鲜艳的红色。

A really good example of this is the colour Scarlet, which is a bright shade of red.

实际上，‘猩红’最初并不是一种颜色的名称，而是一种布料的名称——一种非常精美、奢华、柔软的羊毛织物。

Scarlet actually, initially wasn't the name of a colour, it was the name of a type of cloth, a really beautiful, very fine, very luxurious, very soft woollen cloth.

当你生产如此精美的布料时，将其染成最昂贵的颜色是合乎逻辑的。

It made sense when you were producing such a wonderful cloth to dye it the most expensive colour.

没有人愿意购买世界上最美丽的布料，却让它变成一种非常过时的颜色。

No one wants to buy the most beautiful cloth in the world and have it a colour that is really unfashionable.

在Scarlet这种最美丽的布料盛行的时代，最时尚且最昂贵的颜色是一种鲜红色。

The colour that was most fashionable and expensive at the time when Scarlet was the most beautiful cloth was a bright red.

随着时间的推移，这种布料一贯染成的颜色借用了布料本身的名称。

And over time, the color that this cloth was always dyed borrowed the name for the type of cloth.

因此，'scarlet'这个词从一种布料的名称演变为一种红色的名称。

And so scarlet went from being a type of cloth to a type of red.

这就像是把'棉'当作一种颜色的名称一样。

So it would almost be as if cotton was a name for a color.

没错。

Exactly.

或者把'聚酯'当作我们都认同的一种颜色名称。

Or polyester was a name of a color that we all identify.

没错。

Exactly.

什么

What

关于那些被视为彩虹基本颜色的颜色呢？

about the colors that are seen as just sort of your basic colors of the rainbow?

我们是怎么为红色、橙色、蓝色、黄色这样的颜色命名的？

How do we get names for things like red, orange, blue, yellow?

在英语和许多其他语言中，大家普遍认同的基本颜色数量大致相同，比如红色、绿色、蓝色。

In English, and in a lot of other languages, you have around about the same number of colors that we all agree are the basic colors red, green, blue.

但并非所有语言都如此。

But that isn't the case for all languages.

并非所有语言都对什么是基本颜色达成一致。

So not all languages agree on what is a basic color.

有些语言只有三个基本颜色术语。

So some languages only have three basic color terms.

它们会把彩虹中所有的颜色划分为仅仅三种。

They will divide the entire spectrum of all the colors in the rainbow into just three.

它们会分为浅色、深色和红色。

They'll have light colors, dark colors and red.

其他语言和国家对彩虹的划分方式也不同。

Other languages and other countries have, you know, divide the rainbow up differently.

例如，在俄罗斯和俄语中，蓝色不是一种颜色，而是被分为两种。

So for example in Russia and in the Russian language, blue isn't one color, it's divided into two.

一种是浅蓝，另一种是深蓝。

There is light blue and there is dark blue.

在西米语、古拉博伊语和韩语中，绿色也被分为两种。

Simi and Gullaboi and in Korea they divide green up into two.

一种是普通的绿色，另一种是偏黄的绿色。

Regular green and kind of yellowy green.

许多语言在历史上曾增加或淘汰过一些颜色。

And lots of languages have added or gotten rid of colors over time.

如果你一百年前去日本，他们会用同一个词表示蓝色和绿色。

So if you were to go to Japan around about one hundred years ago, they would have the same word for both blue and green.

现在他们有了不同的词，但这是很近才发生的变化。

They now have separate words but that's pretty recent.

所以，是的，答案是这些基本颜色术语取决于你的文化和语言认为什么是基本颜色。

So, yes, the answer is that those basic colour terms depend on what your culture and what your language believe is a basic colour.

并非所有语言都持相同观点。

And not all languages agree.

仔细想想这一点。

Think about that for a second.

如果你生活在一个语言区分绿色和蓝色的地方，你可能会走到外面说：嘿，那辆车是绿色的，那辆是蓝色的。

If you live in a place with a language that differentiates between green and blue, you might walk outside and say, hey, that car is green and that other car is blue.

但如果你说的语言把绿色和蓝色视为同一种颜色，你的大脑会认为：看，有两辆蓝色的车，只是深浅略有不同。

But if you speak a language that sees green and blue as one color, your brain will think, look, there are two blue cars in slightly different shades.

我叫查理。

My name is Charlie.

我六岁了。

I'm six years old.

我来自加利福尼亚州长滩。

I'm from Long Beach, California.

白色是一种颜色吗？

Is white a color or not?

这是个非常好的问题。

So that's a really good question.

物理学家可能会给出一种回答方式。

And there is a way that a physicist might answer it.

而普通人则会有另一种回答方式。

And then there's the way an everyday person would answer it.

物理学家会告诉你，白色和黑色其实不是颜色，它们更多是光的表现形式。

And a physicist would tell you that white and black are not really colors, they are more expressions of light.

如果你拥有完整的可见光谱，你会将其感知为白色；如果你完全没有光，你会将那东西感知为黑色。

So if you've got the full spectrum of visible light, you will perceive that as white and if you've got none of it, you will perceive that thing as black.

但对于普通人来说，我们会走进商店，挑选白色油漆，挑选一条黑色牛仔裤。

But for ordinary people, we go into a shop and we pick white paint, we pick a black pair of jeans.

因此，我们把白色和黑色体验为颜色。

And so we experience white and black as colors.

这些是很有用的颜色类别，和蓝色或绿色一样是有效的颜色。

Those are useful color groups, and they are as valid a color as blue or green.

但这些颜色在物理学家所理解的光的表现意义上，并非绝对的白色，也不是完全缺乏光线的绝对黑色。

But these things aren't perfectly white in the way that a physicist is thinking of, as an expression of light, or perfectly black, the absence of light.

但它们属于这一类别。

But they are in the category.

它们是一种黑色。

They are a type of black.

它们是一种白色。

They are a type of white.

但要体验纯粹的白色或纯粹的黑暗是非常非常困难的。

But it's very, very difficult to experience pure white or pure dark.

几年前，人们创造了一种名为Vantablack的物质，这种物质能吸收99.965%的可见光谱。

There's a substance that was created a few years ago called Vantablack and that substance absorbs 99.965% of the visible spectrum.

因此，它的外观看起来非常奇异。

So what this looked like is really uncanny.

本质上，任何涂有这种物质的物体，你都无法再看到其任何深度。

Essentially, you could no longer see any depth in an object that's coated with the substance.

我这话是什么意思？

What do I mean by that?

我看到一块揉皱的铝箔上涂了Vantablack。

I was shown Vantablack on a piece of scrumpled up aluminium foil.

通常情况下，当你看到一片铝箔时，你能看出它有不同的纹理，被揉皱过。

Ordinarily when you see a piece of foil, you can see that it's got different textures, it's been scrumpled up a little bit.

铝箔的不同区域以不同方式反射光线，因此你知道这个物体是三维的。

Different areas of the foil reflect light in different ways and so you know that that object is three d.

你知道有些部分离你更远，有些部分更近。

You know it's got bits are further away from you and closer towards you.

但当你用Vantablack覆盖同一片铝箔时——它能吸收99.965%的光线——你所看到的只是一个平坦的黑色区域。

But when you coat that same piece of foil with Vantablack, which absorbs 99.965% of the light, all you can see is a flat black space.

你知道那是一片揉皱的铝箔，但你完全无法再看到铝箔上的任何细节。

You know that that is a piece of scrumpled foil, but you are no longer able to see any definition in the foil at all.

它看起来就是平的。

It just looks flat.

所以一个圆球看起来和一个圆圈一样。

And so a round ball looks the same as a circle.

一辆车也不会看起来像辆车，而只会像一辆车的轮廓。

And a car wouldn't look like a car, it would just look like an outline of a car.

因此，它削弱了我们感知深度的能力。

So it reduces our ability to perceive depth.

我现在想跟我的家人开个玩笑。

I wanna play a prank on my family now.

我想把我的所有椅子都涂成Vantablack，然后说：去坐吧。

I wanna paint all of my chairs Vanta black and then say, go sit down.

他们会说：但那里什么都没有，没法坐。

And they'd be like, but there's nothing to sit on.

因为那看起来只会像一把椅子的轮廓，但我看不到那里有一个可以坐的平面，也没有一个可以靠背的地方。

Because it just it wouldn't it would look like the shape of an outline of a chair, but it wouldn't look like I wouldn't be able to see that there is a flat place for me to sit and a place for me to put my back.

它看起来就像一个整体

It just looks like one solid

它会看起来像一团东西。

It would look like a blob.

是的。

Yeah.

这太酷了。

That's very cool.

非常酷。

Very cool.

今天我们学到了很多关于眼睛和大脑如何协同工作来解读颜色的知识，以及不同的人、文化和语言如何以不同方式看待颜色。

We've learned a lot today about how our eyes and brains work together to interpret color and how different people and cultures and languages think about colors differently.

让我们用诺亚的这个问题来结束吧。

Let's end with this question from Noah.

我住在纽约南塞勒姆，今年10岁。

I live in South Salem, New York, and I'm 10 years old.

为什么颜色会让你产生不同的情绪？

Why do colors make you feel different emotions?

所以你所经历的是，人们对于某种颜色的最广泛的文化感受。

So what you've got going on is you've got the way that are kind of the broadest culture feel about a colour.

这是我们从周围世界中吸收的信息。

So this is information that we pick up from the world around us.

这包括我们看到的广告、我们所使用的语言等等。

So that includes adverts that we see, the language that we're speaking with, and so on and so forth.

因此，你会有一些非常宽泛的概括，比如红色常与行动相关联，比如愤怒、停止，或者那些需要立即服从的词，需要立即执行的想法，突然发生的事。

So you have really broad generalizations like red is often associated with action, so things like anger or stop or really words that need to be obeyed immediately, ideas that need to be obeyed immediately, things that are sudden.

我们会将这种理解带入到我们对‘红色’这一词的体验中。

And we take this understanding into our experience of the word red.

然后你可能会有更具体的东西。

You then might have more specific things.

你可能会在自己所在的城市看到，比如地铁站使用红色标识。

You might have something in your own city, you might have like the metro stations use red signage.

因此，这可能会让你联想到交通，即使你并没有立即意识到这是你对红色理解的一部分。

And so that will probably make you think of transport, even if you're not immediately aware that that is part of your understanding of the colour red.

它会影响你对红色的理解。

It will inform your understanding of it.

然后你还会遇到我所说的‘沙发上的毯子’。

And then you have what I call the throw on sofa.

接着是你个人对它的体验。

Then have your own personal experience of it.

你小时候是怎么长大的？

How did you grow up?

你小时候有没有玩过这种特定颜色的玩具？

Did you have toys that were this particular colour when you were growing up?

这是你父母最喜欢的颜色吗？

Was it your parents' favorite color?

这是你最喜欢的颜色吗？

Is it your favorite color?

比如，你是否选择给你的狗取名为‘Scarlet’？

Did you choose to name your dog Scarlet, for example?

所有这些因素都会共同影响我们对颜色的感受。

And all these things will act together in our experience of how we feel about a color.

但你可能还受到其他因素的影响，而这正是问题变得极其复杂的地方，因为有一些证据表明，许多人相信某些颜色会以某种方式让所有人类产生特定感受，这源于我们天生的生理反应。

But you also have other things going on, possibly, and this is where it becomes really difficult because there is some evidence and lots of people believe that certain colours make all humans feel a certain way just because that's how we are hardwired to behave.

因此，很多人相信，红色——再次以红色为例——能给我们带来能量冲击，让我们更具有攻击性、愤怒或充满激情。

So, lots of people believe that red, again to take the red example, gives us a jolt of energy and makes us more aggressive, angry, passionate.

问题是，以科学方式验证这一点是绝对不可能的，因为你无法将一个人从其文化背景中完全剥离出来。

The problem is that it's absolutely impossible to test for this in scientific way because you cannot remove a human being from everything, from their culture.

因此，你无法彻底区分哪些是深植于所有人类的共性，哪些是我们成长过程中从周围世界习得的。

And so you can't really completely unpick what it is that's ingrained in all humans and what it is that we grow up with and that we understand from living in the world around us.

对。

Right.

因为有时你会听到人们说，如果你想为进入这个房间的任何人营造一个平静的环境，就应该把房间刷成黄色或蓝色，我都记不清是哪几种颜色了。

Because sometimes you'll hear people say, If you wanna create a calming environment for anybody who's gonna come into that room, you should paint the room yellow or blue, I can't even remember which ones.

但你的意思是，我们并不知道这是因为每个人的大脑都认为这种颜色是令人平静的，还是因为我们从小成长的环境和文化告诉我们这种颜色是平静的。

But what you're saying is we don't know if that's because everybody's brain thinks of that color as a calming color, or if it's because we think it's calming because that's what we've grown up with, and that's what our culture has told us.

无论如何，目前还没有办法科学地弄清楚这一点。

There's no way to figure that out scientifically yet, at any rate.

但将来可能会。

Yet.

你还能想到其他关于颜色的故事吗？那些能让人震惊的？

Is there any other story about color that you think just blow everyone's mind?

当然。

Yeah.

所以很多人认为粉色是很女性化的颜色，而蓝色是很男性化的颜色。

So I think a lot of people think of pink as being quite a girly color and blue as being quite a boyish color.

但如果你回溯一百年前，人们的想法恰恰完全相反。

But if you go back a hundred years actually people thought of it completely the opposite way around.

当时人们认为粉色是给男孩的颜色，而蓝色是给女孩的颜色。

People thought about pink as being a colour for boys and blue as being a colour for girls.

如果你看看当时人们对蓝色和粉色的描述，他们会说粉色更果断、更男性化、更具攻击性，而蓝色则更温柔、更女性化。

If you look at the way that they talked about blue and pink then, they said that pink was more decided, it was more masculine, it was more aggressive and blue was more gentle and feminine.

我这一生中亲眼见证了这一点。

I've seen that in my own lifetime.

我父亲出生于1925年，他成长的时候，蓝色被认为是更女性化的颜色，粉色则是更男性化的颜色。

Father was born in 1925 and when he was growing up blue was the more feminine color and pink was the more masculine color.

他和他的伴侣吉莉有一对几乎一模一样的手杖。

And he and his partner, Gilly, they had kind of essentially matching walking sticks.

一根是蓝色的，一根是粉色的。

One was blue and one was pink.

我父亲的是粉色的，吉莉的是蓝色的。

And my dad's one was the pink one and Jilly's one was the blue one.

对他们来说，这完全自然且正常。

That seemed entirely natural and normal to them.

我觉得很有趣的是，仅仅在短短一百年、一个人的一生中，这种意义和认知就完全颠倒了。

And I find it really funny that in just a relatively short period of time, in just a hundred years in the span of one life, that meaning and understanding has completely switched around.

我觉得很有趣的是，如果我们都能活到100岁，那么在我们这一生中，颜色的含义会完全发生怎样的转变呢？

And I think it's really interesting to imagine if we all grow up to 100, what color meanings would have completely shifted over in our lifetime?

现在我认为人们把绿色看作是自然的颜色，与大自然相关。

Will green now I think people think of green as being a natural color and to do with nature.

但在一百年后，情况可能就不是这样了。

Maybe that won't be the case in a hundred years' time.

也许我们会想到别的东西。

Maybe we'll think of something else.

或者当我们想到黄色时，不再立刻联想到阳光。

Or maybe when we think of yellow, we won't immediately think of sunshine.

我们会想到别的东西。

We'll think of something else.

我们目前还不得而知。

We just don't know yet.

而这正是我如此热爱色彩这个主题的原因。

And again, this is why I love the subject of color.

而且说实话，在这一点上，不管你喜欢粉色、蓝色、绿色、黄色还是其他任何颜色，你都可以喜欢任何你喜欢的颜色。

And honestly, this point, if you like pink or blue or green or yellow or whatever color, you can like whatever color you want.

当然。

Absolutely.

颜色是属于每个人的。

Colors are for everyone.

我们赋予它们的那些意义，有时看起来如此僵化，像规则一样，但它们终将改变。

And these meanings that we attach to them that sometimes seem so rigid and like rules, they are going to change.

它们确实在改变。

They do change.

我们可以看到它们在变化。

We can see them changing.

所以，即使某件事看起来像一条铁律，必须严格遵守，也请记住粉色和蓝色的例子。

And so even if something seems like a really hard and fast rule, something that definitely should be obeyed, just remember the example of pink and blue.

它们现在给人的感觉是这样的，但过去并非如此，未来也可能不再如此。

They feel a certain way now, but that wasn't always the case and it may not always be the case in the future.

谁知道呢，十年后、二十年后，这一切可能都已经改变了。

Who knows, in ten years' time, twenty years' time, this may have all changed.

感谢卡西亚·斯。

Thanks to Cassia St.

克莱尔，《色彩的隐秘生活》的作者，帮助我们思考色彩的宇宙，以及它如何与我们对周围世界的认知紧密相连。

Clair, author of The Secret Lives of Color, for helping us think about the universe of color and how much it's tied to the way we think about the world around us.

你有最喜欢的颜色吗？

Do you have a favorite color?

我们非常想知道。

We'd love to know.

以及这种颜色让你有什么样的感受？

And how that color makes you feel?

发送一段视频给我们，我们会把它发布在我们的Instagram和YouTube页面上。

Send us a video and we'll pop it up on our Instagram and YouTube pages.

一如既往，如果你对任何事情有疑问，请让一位成年人用手机应用程序（如语音备忘录）录制你提问的视频，然后让成年人将文件发送至 questions@butwhykids.org。

As always, if you have a question about anything, have an adult record you asking it on a smartphone using an app like Voice Memos, then have your adult email the file to questions@butwhykids.org.

我们的节目由梅洛迪·博迪特、莎拉·贝克和我简·林德霍尔姆在佛蒙特公共电台制作，并由PRX发行。

Our show is produced by Melody Bodette, Sarah Bake, and me, Jane Lindholm, at Vermont Public and distributed by PRX.

我们的视频制作人是乔伊·帕伦博，主题音乐由卢克·雷诺兹创作。

Our video producer is Joey Palumbo, and our theme music is by Luke Reynolds.

如果你喜欢我们的节目，请请你的大人帮你在你使用的任何播客平台上给我们点赞或写评论。

If you like our show, please have your adults help you give us a thumbs up or a review on whatever podcast platform you use.

这有助于其他孩子和家庭找到我们。

It helps other kids and families find us.

我们将在两周后带来全新的节目。

We'll be back in two weeks with an all new episode.

在此期间，保持好奇心。

Until then, stay curious.

来自PRX。

From PRX.