Scientists Complete Schrödinger's Color Theory Over 100 Years Later

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Beauty may lie in the eye of the beholder, but color doesn't, researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US report in a new study, suggesting perception of color attributes is intrinsic.

Despite differences in how we label colors – and quirks like that 2015 internet debate about the color of a dress – our basic perception of color distinctions is not driven by external factors like culture or experience, the study suggests.

The research builds on the work of Erwin Schrödinger, the physicist famous for his "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment, who, among other biological phenomena, also studied color perception.

Combining results of color-perception studies within a geometric framework, the authors of the new study found shortcomings in Schrödinger's mathematical definitions of hue, saturation, and lightness. Beyond merely building on his work, they resolved these ambiguities and helped complete his work more than a century later.