What is color?

The human eye-brain system responds in a peculiar way when it simultaneously detects photons of different colors. For example, if the eye receives red and green photons simultaneously, it reports that it is detecting "yellow." Only by analysis with a more reliable piece of equipment can a careful researcher determine if the "yellow" being detected is a result of a beam of yellow-wavelength photons, or a beam containing both red photons and green photons.
If the human eye is bombarded with a crowd of diverse photons with wavelengths sampling all the colors ROYGBIV, the overworked eyeball-brain system reports the detection of "white light." Conversely, "black" is the signal reported to indicate the lack of photon detection. The concepts of "white" and "black" are artifacts of our eye-brain's light sensing and interpretation limitations and do not have much in the way of counterparts in the real universe.

- First, it may absorb all optical photons that strike it except for those with yellow wavelengths, which it reflects with vigor. This would result in an yellow flower.
- Second, it may absorb nearly all optical photons (including yellow), and reflects only red and green wavelengths. This would result in an yellow flower.
- Third, it may reflect all optical photons, with the exception of blue photons. This would result in an yellow flower.
For reasons of completeness, I am compelled to note that even a flower that uniformly reflects all colors equally (i.e. a "white" flower) would appear yellow if illuminated by a yellow beam of light.
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