“The color white is the absence of all colors.”

Many people hold the belief that white represents a void of color, a blank canvas devoid of any hue. This misconception often stems from our early experiences with art supplies. When we mix various paint colors together, the result is typically a dark, murky shade approaching black, leading to the intuitive idea that adding more colors takes away from lightness and eventually leads to the absence of color.

However, in the realm of physics and true color theory, the opposite is true for light. White light is not the absence, but rather the harmonious presence of all colors within the visible spectrum. This scientific truth was famously demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th century, when he used a prism to separate white sunlight into a rainbow of distinct colors. He then showed that another prism could recombine these individual colors back into white light. This experiment definitively proved that white light is a composite of all visible wavelengths.

The persistence of this myth largely comes from confusing additive color mixing (how light works) with subtractive color mixing (how pigments work). When light sources combine, their colors add up to create white. Conversely, black is the absence of all visible light, meaning no light is reflected back to our eyes, or all wavelengths are absorbed. So, while our paintboxes teach us one lesson, the universe of light reveals a different and fascinating truth about white.