Thursday, January 10, 2013

Gold is red and squirrels are purple? Yes and no.

I love color, particularly the subtle way in which it reveals the workings of the universe, and hints at the deeper mysteries hidden inside each molecule.  In midsummer, wearing my science writer hat I guested at Margaret Almon's blog, writing about turning gold into red glass.

Now thanks to Stratoz, I'm musing about purple squirrels (though not in this sense) and imperial violet (Tyrian purple), the structure of which is shown at the left, on my other blog.



A beautiful photo of Tyrian purple in the wild (explore the rest of this Tumblr, do).

If you are curious about the many ways in which color manifests, browse this beautiful web exhibit:  Causes of Color.  Safe for the science tentative!

4 comments:

  1. Forwarding your link about red stained glass to my dad, who is a stained-glass artist! He's told me before that red glass has gold in it; I know he will be interested in reading more.

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    1. He probably knows far more about it than I do!

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    2. No, all he knew was that red glass has gold in it--so red glass is much more expensive than, say, blue or green. I know he WANTS to know even more!

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  2. Will pass on other colorful moments

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