# How many different colors are in this spiral? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-different-colors-are-in-this-spiral/755250 "2016-05-20T18:56:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2016, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-different-colors-are-in-this-spiral/755250/21 "2016-05-22T05:29:26Z")
I see 4 colors. Blue, green, red and pink. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2016, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-different-colors-are-in-this-spiral/755250/22 "2016-05-22T05:50:27Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > The only colors are: > Orange Spiral: 255, 150, 0 > Magenta: 255, 0, 255 > Greenish: 0, 255, 150 > Center: 0, 0, 0 (x, y 256, 256) > > If you see some other colors, I would ask what program you are using to display and check the values. When I use ColorPic I get a lot more hex values (colors) than that when sampling various spots on the spiral. 125, 202,75 148, 194, 63 7, 252,146 43, 237, 125 212, 168, 25 79, 176, 182 191, 64, 229 127, 127, 202 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2016, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-different-colors-are-in-this-spiral/755250/23 "2016-05-22T06:44:14Z")
> [@erocked](#): > > Your right, this image doesn’t use anti aliasing, which is why I said aliasing. And if you zoom in the aliasing looks like a 1 pixel stroke around each color. There are 6 rgb color values in this image. OK, I think I see what you’re saying. When you zoom the image with Chrome or Firefox the renderers put new colors at the boundaries between the image’s colors. But I think such interpolating pixels are called _anti_-aliasing. 🙂 When I look at the image rendered with such zooming I see not only the three obvious new colors (magenta/green, orange/green, magenta/orange) but _variations_ in the colors within the boundary region, as would be expected with sophisticated anti-aliasing, so the total number of distinct (r,g,b) values is huge. (I also note that the boundary regions are several pixels wide, as though the interpolation algorithm assumes the original is band-limited and applies some diffusion.) All of which is irrelevant to the thread topic, of course. I once had the words “color” and “scientist” in my job title, yet still find these paradoxical images almost unbelievable! ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2016, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-different-colors-are-in-this-spiral/755250/24 "2016-05-22T07:34:22Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > When I use ColorPic I get a lot more hex values (colors) than that when sampling various spots on the spiral. > > 125, 202,75 > 148, 194, 63 > 7, 252,146 > 43, 237, 125 > 212, 168, 25 > 79, 176, 182 > 191, 64, 229 > 127, 127, 202 What are some examples of these coordinates? ---
**Author:** ![phantom\_lamb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@phantom\_lamb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phantom_lamb)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-different-colors-are-in-this-spiral/755250/25 "2016-05-22T13:56:48Z")
Well I got it right… my logic was “It sure looks like four, so that can’t be the answer. So it’s probably three.” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-different-colors-are-in-this-spiral/755250/26 "2016-05-25T06:39:01Z")
> [@phantom\_lamb](#): > > Well I got it right… my logic was “It sure looks like four, so that can’t be the answer. So it’s probably three.” I did pretty much the same. I wondered if it might only be two, but there aren’t enough juxtapositional possibilities with only two. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-different-colors-are-in-this-spiral/755250.md?page=1)