My entire life, I’ve been content with believing that white is the absence of colour and black is all colours. It was told to me in a science class discussing the spectrum, and in an art class dealing with the colour wheel. Recently, I was told that it’s the other way around: BLACK is the absence of colour, while WHITE is all colours. There are logical explanations for both, but can some of the TM’s assist me?
“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true” -Albert Einstein
It’s my interpretation that things today are 180 degrees different than what they used to be. You know right is wrong, left is right (at least in Wash DC), black is white, etc. Hence what you’ve been told recently is correct. Wait til next & it will be as your science teacher told you. I was told and still believe your science teacher but I consider myself a dinosaur. God (that’s dog spelled backwards) what line of thinking the new millennium will bring. My hope is that God is Y2K compatible. Someone please check that out with Bill Gates. Gotta go someones at the door. Oh my aren’t those coats nice and white.
{{{Recently, I was told that it’s the other way around: BLACK is the absence of colour, while WHITE is all colours. There are logical explanations for both, but can some of the TM’s assist me?}}}—Alias
Actually, both are true–given an appropriate shift of paradigm.
You are encountering the differences between additive and subtractive color mixing.
In additive color mixing (the combination of emitted light frequencies), white is the uniform combination of all colors. This is the method used in the CRT of your television set or computer monitor.
In subtractive color mixing (the combination of pigments designed to reflect a limited frequency of light) black is the uniform combination of all pigments. (The actual result is more of a very dark, muddy brown.) This is the method used in printing and on the artist’s pallet.
That’s the short version, without diving into alot of techno-speak. Hope it helps.
There are a number of excellent texts, that discuss the topic fully, to be found most public libraries. This to avoid a long dissertation on the subject of quantum mechanics. It is a fascinating field of study, I’m sure you’ll agree.
–Kalél
(The Original EnigmaOne)
Remember that “light” is just one small part of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from radio waves to x-rays and beyond. Objects that appear black are absorbing all the colors, at least in the visible spectrum, and are reflecting none, although it will be re-radiating energy in the infrared spectrum, and possibly reflecting in the ultra violet. All matter emits some radiation based upon its chemical composition (unless its temperature is at absolute zero), thus the ability to identify them by their spectral “signature”. Objects that appear white are reflecting or radiating all colors in the visible spectrum. Interestingly, a mirror may be considered virtually “white”, as it fits this description, although the rays are being reflected in parallel, and not scattered as they would be from a rough or matte surface. Also keep in mind that there are 3 kinds of “colors” that can be created or perceived: Subtractive (mixing paint pigments), additive (mixing colored lights), and structural (peacock feathers or a diffraction grating like the surface of a CD). The 3 basic subtractive colors are: Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. The 3 basic additive colors are Red, Blue and Green. Each has a “compliment” made from the remaining two (Cyan is the compliment of Red, being made up of Blue and Green). Hope this answers your question.
Gary
My best friend is a commercial photographer, he works with light. I am (among other things) a graphic artist,I work with pigments. Come join us in a confusing conversation some time.( Duck when we start throwing brushes and light stands at each other.)
Now that many people have computers and can play around with color settings, the additive version of color should become more familiar.
It would also help if we stopped telling kids that the pigment primaries are red, yellow, and blue. They’re magenta, yellow, and cyan. A good example is if you carefully peel apart a cardboard food box. Quite often, hidden under one of the flaps, you’ll see three colored dots which were printed to test that the tint was coming out ok.
Lumpy: It would also help if we stopped telling kids that the pigment primaries are red, yellow, and blue. They’re magenta, yellow, and cyan.
Technically true, but it’s easier to sing “Red, yellow, and blue” to my “Harold and the Purple Crayon” record. 
You people make everything so hard.
Think of it this way, both are right. But in different ways. If you take a blank piece of white paper, it has no color on it, if you take a red paint out of your box of crayola paints and color a section of the paper, now repeat with blue, green, orange, etc. only skip black and white. You will get a very dark color approximating black, this is the same process that color printers use with three inks creating all other colors (though usually black is its own separate color).
The other white is all color black is none, What color is the light from the sun or a flash light? White, shine it through a prism and it becomes all the colors of the rainbow. See all of the colors or the light spectrum are blended and form white light, turn all the lights off and what do you have, blackness, the absence of all light/color.
So, if you are talking about light - white is all color, black is none, if you are talking about paints - black is all color and white is none.
Jeffery