Physics

Light, Color, and Vision Are One Big Interdisciplinary Adventure

Big idea: Light explains color in nature and tech

• The talk explores how light underpins color in butterflies, beetles, peacocks, soap bubbles, and everyday objects.

• It frames color as a bridge between physics, biology, and chemistry, not a dry, isolated topic.

• Lasers, prisms, UV lamps, and infrared cameras show how invisible parts of the spectrum shape what we see.

• Structural effects (nano‑scale structures) can create intense colors without any pigment at all.

How light actually works

• White light from lamps or the sun contains many colors that can be separated with a prism into a spectrum.

• Infrared and ultraviolet sit beyond what our eyes see, but cameras and sensors can reveal them.

• Infrared shows heat patterns: car engines, human skin, and even heat loss from a balding head.

• UV light can excite fluorescent pigments to glow in vivid visible colors.

How our eyes and brains see color

• The eye uses rods for low light and three kinds of cones tuned to red, green, and blue.

• The pupil is a biological adaptation that shrinks and expands to protect the retina from excessive light.

• Infrared cameras and close‑up imaging of the retina reveal living cells converting light into electrical signals.

• Genetic tweaks in cone photoreceptors create “color‑alternative” vision, commonly called color blindness, changing how people distinguish numbers and patterns in standard tests.

Pigments vs. structural color

• Pigments like melanin, chlorophyll, and hemoglobin create color by absorbing parts of the spectrum and reflecting the rest.

• Mixing pigments is subtractive: combining primaries leads toward black as more wavelengths are absorbed.

• Structural colors arise from nano‑scale layers and interfaces that reflect and interfere with light, not from dyes.

• Soap bubbles, peacock feathers, and certain butterfly wings get their intense blues and greens from structure, not blue or green pigment.

Why it Matters

• Understanding color at the level of light, biology, and structure unlocks better cameras, displays, sensors, and materials.

• It shows leaders that innovation often sits at the intersection of disciplines, not within one silo.

• The same physics that explains a soap bubble’s shimmer drives real‑world tech in imaging, security, medicine, and design.

• Seeing color as an interdisciplinary system encourages more integrated thinking in science, engineering, and product strategy.