Yellow

Yellow is the color evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M (long- and medium-wavelength) cone cells of the retina about equally, but does not significantly stimulate the S (short-wavelength) cone cells; that is, light with lots of red and green but not much blue.^[1] Light with a wavelength of 570–580 nm is a yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of somewhat longer and shorter wavelengths. Yellow's colorimetrically defined complementary color in terms of color mixing using light is blue.

Variations of Yellow

Electric Yellow

The color box at right shows the most intense yellow representable in in 8-bit RGB color model; yellow is a secondary color in an additive RGB space.

The measured light spectrum from yellow pixels on a typical computer display is complex, and very unlike the reflectance spectrum of a yellow object such as a banana.^[2]

Process yellow

Process yellow (also known as pigment yellow, printer's yellow or canary yellow) is one of the three colors typically used as subtractive primary colors, along with magenta and cyan. The CMYK system for color printing is based on using four inks, one of which is a yellow color. This is not in itself a standard color, though a fairly narrow range of yellow inks or pigments are used. Process yellow is based on a colorant that reflects the preponderance of red and green light, and absorbs most blue light, as in the reflectance spectra shown in the figure to the right.

Because of the characteristics of paint pigments and use of different color wheels, painters traditionally regard the complement of yellow as the color indigo or blue-violet.

Process yellow is not an RGB color, and there is no fixed conversion from CMYK primaries to RGB. Different formulations are used for printer's ink, so there can be variations in the printed color that is pure yellow ink.

Complements of yellow

Hunt^[3] defines that "two colors are complementary when it is possible to reproduce the tristimulus values of a specified achromatic stimulus by an additive mixture of these two stimuli." That is, when two colored lights can be mixed to match a specified white (achromatic, non-colored) light, the colors of those two lights are complementary. This definition, however, does not constrain what version of white will be specified. In the nineteenth century, the scientists Grassmann and Helmholtz did experiments in which they concluded that finding a good complement for spectral yellow was difficult, but that the result was indigo, that is, a wavelength that today's color scientists would call violet. Helmholtz says "Yellow and indigo blue" are complements.^[4] Grassman reconstructs Newton's category boundaries in terms of wavelengths and says "This indigo therefore falls within the limits of color between which, according to Helmholtz, the complementary colors of yellow lie."^[5] Newton's own color circle has yellow directly opposite the boundary between indigo and violet. These results, that the complement of yellow is a wavelength shorter than 450 nm, are derivable from the modern CIE 1931 system of colorimetry if it is assumed that the yellow is about 580 nm or shorter wavelength, and the specified white is the color of a blackbody radiator of temperature 2800 K or lower (that is, the white of an ordinary incandescent light bulb). More typically, with a daylight-colored or around 5000 to 6000 K white, the complement of yellow will be in the blue wavelength range, which is the standard modern answer for the complement of yellow.

Geography

Many place names refer to yellow:

Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone Caldera, the Yellowstone supervolcano
Yellowstone Falls
Yellowstone River
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Northwest Territories, Canada

Yellowknife, the capital and only city of Northwest Territories in Canada, with population of about 18,000.
Yellowknife River is a river in the Northwest Territories; it flows south and empties into Yellowknife Bay, part of Great Slave Lake, at the city of Yellowknife.

Plants and animals

The yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) is a birch species native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and southern Quebec west to Minnesota, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia. They are medium-sized deciduous trees and can reaching about 20 m tall, trunks up to 80 cm in diameter. The bark is smooth and yellow-bronze and the wood is extensively used for flooring, cabinetry, and toothpicks.
Yellow-breasted Chats (Icteria virens) are large foraging songbird found in southern parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central America. They are olive with a white bellies and a yellow throat and breast, with a long tail, a thick heavy bill, a large white eye ring, and dark legs.
A yellow-fever mosquito is a mosquito in the Aedes genus, so named because they transmit dengue fever and yellow fever, the mosquito-born viruses.
Yellow-green alga, also called xanthophytes, are a class of algae in the Heterokontophyta division. Most live in freshwater, but some are found in marine and soil habitats. They vary from single-celled flagellates to simple colonial and filamentousforms. Unlike other heterokonts, yellow-green algae's chloroplasts do not contain fucoxanthin, which is why they have a lighter color.
The Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) is a passerine in the bunting family Emberizidae. It breeds across Europe and much of Asia. Most yellowhammers are resident, but some far northern birds migrate south in winter. It is common in all sorts of open areas with some scrub or trees. They are large with a thick seed-eater's bill. The males have a bright yellow head, yellow underparts, and a heavily streaked brown back. Females are much duller and more streaked below.
Yellowjackets are black-and-yellow wasps of the genus Vespula or Dolichovespula (though some can be black-and-white, the most notable of these being the bald-faced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata). They can be identified by their distinctive black-and-yellow color, small size (slightly larger than a bee), and entirely black antennae.
Yellow poplar is a common name for Liriodendron, the tuliptree. The name is inaccurate as this genus is not related to poplars.
The Yellow-shafted Flicker (Colaptes auratus) is a large woodpecker species of eastern North America. They have yellow shafts on their wing and tail feathers.
Yellowtail is the common name for dozens of different fish species that have yellow tails or a yellow body.
Goldenrod is a yellow flowering plant in the Family Asteraceae

Yellow in human culture

Cultural associations

Yellow is a bright, cheerful color, often associated with happiness and peace.
In the English language, yellow has traditionally been associated with jaundice and cowardice. In American slang, a coward is said to be "yellowbellied" or "yellow".
In Hindu mythology it is considered that yellow has the power to influence the intellect.
In ancient China, yellow was the symbol of Centre and Earth, one of the main five colors.
In South Korea the color yellow is associated with jealousy.
Near the end of the 19th century, the color yellow was often associated with mental illness, specifically including insanity, and with other sorts of mental problems (e.g. depravity). Examples include The Yellow Book, The Yellow Wallpaper, The King in Yellow, and The Yellow Sign.
In Chinese culture, yellow is associated with royalty, as it is also in southeast Asia. In China, commoners were not allowed to wear yellow until modern times.
In the Malay the term budaya kuning (lit. "yellow culture") is used to refer to lewd or uncouth behaviour, with the implication that such culture is an import from Western societies.
There is a yellow smile, in Arab culture, which is an ingenuine smile. A yellow smile is used when a person is concealing lack of interest, fear, or any emotion he wishes to keep hidden. It is sometimes used as a joke, by making a face of a crooked, ingenuine smile, when somebody tells a bad joke or is trying to make others laugh for something they do not find humorous enough.
There is also a French expression "rire jaune" ("yellow laughter") which could be translated into English as "mirthless laughter", laughing without mirth, laughing when you don't find the joke funny, or when the joke is directed at you.
Pencils are often painted yellow because of the association of this color with China, where the best graphite is found; in the past, only pencils with Chinese graphite used to be painted yellow.

Electronics

in the electronic color code, yellow signifies the numeral 4. This is most frequently seen in the markings for resistors, but is also seen in ribbon cables.

Ethnography

Asian people are sometimes referred to as the yellow race. The use of "yellow" to refer to people of East Asian descent is usually regarded as offensive today in most contexts. In the 20th-century United States, immigrants from China and other East Asian nations were derogatorily referred to as a "yellow peril."
The Yellowknife tribe were a Canadian First Nations tribe. The Yellowknife River and the city Yellowknife (the capital of the Northwest Territories) are named after the tribe.
Yellow Bird was a chief of the Walla Walla tribe.

Finance

Because it is similar to the gold color and precious metals such as gold or bronze, yellow is associated with coinage and bullion.

Food

Mustard yellow is the color of the belt awarded to the World Hot Dog Eating Champion at the annual contest at Nathan's Famous in Coney Island, New York.

Games

Yellow is the color of the snooker ball that has a 2-point value.

Gardening

The Yellow Rose of Texas, Rosa 'Harison's Yellow', first bloomed in New York City in the 1830s.

History

The legendary first emperor of China was known as the Yellow Emperor or Huang Di (Chinese: 黃帝, Simplified Chinese: 黄帝).
As such, yellow was the symbol for the Emperor of China.
The Yellow Turbans were a Daoist sect that staged an extensive rebellion during the Han Dynasty.

Illumination

Yellow bug lights are used on front or back porches of houses to repel insects.

Interior Design

Yellow and golden are the two most popular colors for painting kitchens.

Journalism

"Yellow journalism" was sensationalist journalism that distorts, exaggerates, or exploits news to maximize profit. The term came from Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal American, who engaged in sensational reporting during the late 19th and early 20th century, most famously during the Spanish-American War. The term was derived from the color comic strip The Yellow Kid, which appeared in both papers.

Literature

"Yellow", or "giallo", in Italy, refers to mystery books, mystery movies, or tv shows, as the spine of mystery novels are colored yellow.

Medicine

Yellow is associated with hepatitis A, since someone who has that disease turns yellow.
"Yellow" is 20th Century American drug slang for Nembutal, a barbiturate. This is due to the yellow color of the pills.

Military

On the United States Army and in many commonwealth countries, yellow is the color of cavalry - cavalry uniforms often include a yellow stripe down the side of each leg.

Mining

Yellowcake (also known as urania and uranic oxide) is concentrated uranium oxide, obtained through the milling of uranium ore. Yellowcake is used in the preparation of fuel for nuclear reactors and in uranium enrichment, one of the essential steps for creating nuclear weapons.

Music

The March 1967 album by Donovan called Mellow Yellow was very popular among the hippies. The featured song on the album, Mellow Yellow, popularized during the Spring of 1967 a widely believed hoax that it was possible to get high by smoking scrapings from the inside of banana peels, although this rumor was actually started in 1966 by a different musician popular among the hippies, Country Joe McDonald.
Yellow Submarine is a 1966 song by the Beatles (written by the Lennon-McCartney duo) and the theme song for the a 1968 animated United Artists film based on the music of the Beatles.
Yellow Bird is a famous song from Jamaica. The most popular recording was the one done by Lawrence Welk
Yellow is a song written by Coldplay. It appeared on their parachutes album in 2000 and reached no.4 in the uk charts.

New Age Philosophy

In the metaphysics of the New Age Prophetess, Alice A. Bailey, in her system called the Seven Rays which classifies humans into seven different metaphysical personality types, the fourth ray of harmony through conflict is represented by the color yellow.
Red is used to symbolically represent the third (Manipura) chakra.
Psychics who claim to be able to observe the aura with their third eye report that someone with a yellow aura is typically someone who is in an occupation requiring intellectual acumen, such as a scientist. ^[6]

Religion

In Christianity, yellow represents the deadly sin Greed.
In Buddhism, yellow (actually, the color saffron) is commonly used in conjunction with red, orange , and brown by the monks. The Buddha wore yellow robes after Enlightenment.
Brigham Young prophesied that because the citizens of Jackson County, Missouri had at one point expelled the Mormons, that before the second coming of Christ, there "would not be so much as a yellow dog left" in Jackson County (the city of Independence, Jackson County, Missouri is where Mormons believe the second coming of Christ will occur). [2]

Politics

Yellow was also the color of the New Party in the Republic of China (Taiwan), which supports Chinese reunification.
In the United States, a Yellow Dog Democrat was a Southern voter who consistently voted for Democratic candidates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because of lingering resentment against the Republicans dating back to the Civil War and Reconstruction period. Today the term refers to a hard-core Democrat, supposedly referring to a person who would vote for a "yellow dog" before voting for a Republican.
In some countries, yellow symbolizes liberalism or libertarianism.

Sexuality

In mainland China, yellow can refer to a yellow movie, i.e. a pornographic film (analogous to pink movies in Japan and blue movies in the West).
The term Yellow Music was used by the Communist Party of China in the 1920s to 1950s to describe Chinese popular music as pornography.

Sports

In Association football (soccer), the referee shows a yellow card to indicate that a player has been officially cautioned.
In Association football (soccer), the Yellows is a nickname for Oxford United football club, whose shirts are usually yellow.
In American Football, a yellow flag is thrown onto the field by a referee to indicate a penalty.
Originally in Rugby League and then later, also in Rugby Union, the referee shows a yellow card to indicate that a player has been sent to the sin bin.
In auto racing, a yellow flag signals caution. Cars are not allowed to pass one another under a yellow flag.
In cycle racing, the yellow jersey - or maillot jaune - is awarded to the leader in a stage race. The tradition was begun in the Tour de France where the sponsoring L'Auto newspaper (later L'Équipe) was printed on distinctive yellow newsprint.

Telecommunications

The Yellow Pages is the section of a phone book or online phone directory that lists business numbers by category. They are named for the color paper they are printed on in phone books to distinguish them from the regular listings (White Pages).
Yellow is the name of a submarine telecommunications cable system, also known as AC-2

Transportation

In some countries, taxicabs are commonly yellow. This practice began in Chicago, where taxi entrepreneur John Hertz painted his taxis yellow based on a University of Chicago study alleging that yellow is the color most easily seen at a distance.
In Canada and the United States, school buses are almost uniformly painted a yellow color (often referred to as "school bus yellow") for purposes of visibility and safety, and British bus operators such as FirstGroup plc are attempting to introduce the concept there.
"Caterpillar yellow" and "high-visibility yellow" are used for highway construction equipment.
In the United Kingdom, railway locomotives and multiple units typically have part or all of their ends painted yellow, for visibility.
In the rules of the road, yellow ("amber" in Britain) is a traffic light signal meaning "slow down," "caution," or "slow speed ahead." It is intermediate between green (go) and red (stop). In railway signaling, yellow is often the color for warning, slow down, such as with distant signals.
Several light rail and rapid transit lines on various public transportation have a Yellow Line.

Vexillology

In International maritime signal flags a yellow flag denotes the letter "Q". It also means a ship asserts that is does not need to be Quarantined.

Yellow pigments

External links

All About the Color Yellow

(N)̂g-sek

Citations

[1] http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0534624626&id=AHBnar7sEIIC&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&ots=m3Lzw8xCgQ&dq=yellow-light+long+medium+short+cones&sig=13IGJmaW6EZQPq3yadyxP5ds_QY, James W. Kalat, Introduction to Psychology, 105, Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, 053462460X.
[2] http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN3527405038&id=1oDOWr_yueIC&pg=PA215&lpg=PA215&ots=Jrfi5sRwoo&dq=%22measured+spectrum+of+computer+display+yellow+pixels%22&sig=vtsTKGy_bYEuMOhmf23ysJJxuvQ, Craig F. Bohren and Eugene E. Clothiaux, Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation, Wiley-VCH, 2006, 3527405038.
[3] J. W. G. Hunt, Measuring Color, Ellis Horwood Ltd, 1980, 0-7458-0125-0.
[4] Hermann von Helmholtz, Physiological Optics, Dover, 1924.
[5] Hermann Günter Grassman, Theory of Compound Colors, Philosophical Magazine, Vol. Vol. 4, pp. 254–264, 1854.
[6] Swami Panchadasi The Human Aura: Astral Colors and Thought Forms Des Plaines, Illinois, USA:1912--Yogi Publications Society Page 33

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