Psst, hey, smarty pants, here's a riddle.
What's something you probably have at least one favorite of?
It comes in many different shades and could be red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple!
If you said meatcake ladies newest creation, you're not wrong.
One rainbow meatcake coming up!
But if you said colors, you're absolutely right.
Colors are the hues, tones, and pigments that most of you see, well, pretty much everywhere, every single day.
On the walls of your room, on your clothes, on your toys.
Pretty much everything on Earth displays a unique color.
Before you go any further, may I illuminate the subject?
Who said that? Can't you see me?
I'm right in front of your face.
No, I don't see anyone.
Well, I assure you I'm here.
Here, I'll give you some clues to my identity.
I'm super fast. I'm a particle and a wave. And I can really brighten up your day.
Wow. Smarty Pants, any idea what it could be?
Oh, I know. My rainbow meat cake in a jet plane.
No, I am light. Who cares how much you weigh?
Not that kind of light.
Oh, you mean light as in sunlight, electric light or candlelight.
Exactly. The name's Raya, Raya Light, and I am the electromagnetic spectrum visible to the human eye.
Ooh. Often known as white light.
Gotcha. Nice to meet you, Ms. Light.
Please, call me Raya.
When you talk about colors, you have to talk about me.
Because without light, there'd be no colors.
At least, as perceived by the human eye.
I see, and thanks to light, I see color.
Shh. But what exactly is color?
How many different colors are there, and how did they get their names?
Most importantly, who wants rainbow meat cake.
Maybe later. Right now, it's time for another whiff of science and history on who's smarted?
Who's smarted? Who's smart?
Is it you? Is it me?
Is it science? Or history?
Listen up, everyone.
We make smarting lots of fun on who's smarted.
Hey smarty -pants, Trusty here with a special mission for all the smarty -pants listening.
But unlike a top secret mission, this mission requires you to tell everyone.
That's right. Your job is to spread the word about whosmarted so we can keep growing and bringing you awesome new episodes.
To qualify for this mission, let's play a little game.
Who do you know that would love whosmarted but doesn't listen to the show?
Is it A. a friend? B.
a teacher? C. a relative like your favorite cousin.
Or D, a neighbor who loves fun facts.
Got someone in mind?
Great! Question Two.
Where and when will you tell this person about who's smarted?
Is it A, on a play date, B, at school, C, in the car or D, on the phone?
Pick one, make a plan, stick to it.
And best of all, complete this not -so -top -secret mission.
I'm counting on you smarty pants.
The more people you tell, the bigger we grow, which means a lot more smarting for you.
Smarty pants, question.
How do you think humans discovered the nature of colors?
Like what defines them?
How do they behave?
And how are they perceived or seen?
Did we A. Send light through a prism?
B. Examine Meatcake Lady's Rainbow Meatloaf under a microscope.
Or C. Play with magic markers and crayons until we knew all about colors.
If you said markers and crayons that's certainly how many kids are exposed to the wonderful world of colors.
But that's not the right answer.
That, of course, is A.
Scientists sent light through a prism.
Great job, if you got that right!
Like I said, no ray of light, no colors.
And I'm backed up by none other than Sir Isaac Newton, the world renowned English physicist and mathematician!
Isn't he also the guy with the apple on his head?!
Ouch! I do say that hurt!
Huh. Gravity! Yes! In 1666, Newton observed that white light sent through a prism divided into a range of colors we call the visible spectrum.
Whoa. Oh, and for smarty -pants who don't know, a prism is a piece of glass or other transparent object that's been cut to have very precise angles and flat areas.
It's used to analyze and reflect light.
Please continue, miss.
I mean, Rayya. After observing the visible spectrum of light, Newton noted that the spectrum was continuous, or nearly infinite.
But to make things easier, he identified seven distinct colors, which make up the core of the color wheel.
These colors should be pretty familiar to you, smarty pants.
Let's see if they can name them.
Oh, good idea, Raya.
Okay, smarty pants, let's see if you can name the seven basic colors.
As you may know, these colors also make up a rainbow.
Okay, first, there's red like a rose, orange, like your orange juice, yellow, like a banana peel, green, like boogers, blue, like the ocean, indigo, like the indigo bunting bird, and violet like, um, like, uh, like Violet from Willy Wonka.
Violet, you're turning violet, Violet.
Nice job. Each color corresponds to a specific range of light wave lengths.
Smarty pants, light, just like sound, is measured in waves.
These waves look kind of like ocean waves.
They go up, form a peak, and then go back down.
Thinking about the seven colors we just named, can you guess which color has the longest wavelength and which has the shortest wavelength?
I'll give you a hint.
I started with the longest blue and ended up with the shortest ah!
Did you say red has the longest wavelength and violet has the shortest?
You're right, and in between there's orange, yellow, green, indigo, and blue.
From longest to shortest. But what about all the other colors like the fun ones in your big box of crayons?
Things like scarlet red, mac & cheese yellow, inchworm green, aquamarine blue.
To get those colors you gotta add or subtract colors from Newton's Basic 7.
Add or subtract? Um, I thought we were talking about colors, not math.
We are. But remember, Newton was a mathematician.
OK, so if we add or subtract colors from the first seven, how many new colors can we make?
Smarty -pants, do you know?
Call out some answers.
I heard a hundred, a thousand, oh million!
Are any of those right?
When it comes to the colors the human eye can perceive some estimate there are ten million.
10 million colors? Yep.
And every single one of those millions of colors can be derived through addition, or subtraction, or, as they're known in color theory, additive or subtractive mixture.
And just to be clear, we're talking about mixing colors together, right?
Right. Sometimes you add a color to another color, or colors.
And sometimes you remove a color from a mix of colors.
That adding or subtracting helps form new colors.
Of course, there needs to be a few base colors to start with.
Smartypants, do you know what those base colors are called?
Not the colors themselves, but the group of base colors that can't be made by mixing other colors.
Did you say primary colors?
Great job. Now, do you know what the primary colors are?
Did you say red, yellow, and blue?
Amazing, Smartypants.
What do you think of that, Raya?
I think they're half right.
What do you mean? For a subtractive mixture, the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.
But for additive mixture, the primary colors are red, green, and blue.
Hold on, hold on. How can there be two different sets of primary colors?
Smartypants, did you know about this?
It's because of the difference between additive and subtractive mixture.
Additive mixture involves combining or dividing the beams of light.
Like what Newton did with his prism.
Precisely. When you combine red, green, and blue light, you get white light, which transmits all colors on the visible spectrum.
Although Newton initially identified seven colors when he used the prism to divide white light, you only need to combine red, green, and blue light to make white light.
That is what makes them primary colors for additive mixture.
And what about subtractive mixture?
Subtractive mixture involves absorbing or reflecting light, such as with pigments.
Pigments, as in the stuff inside crayons, watercolors, and paint that makes them colorful?
Right -o! Red pigment absorbs yellow and blue light and reflects red light.
Yellow pigment absorbs red and blue light reflects yellow.
I see. Hey, smarty pants, what do you think blue pigment absorbs?
Did you say red and yellow?
Great job. And when you mix together red, yellow, and blue pigments you get black.
Which absorbs all visible light and reflects no light.
That's what makes red, yellow, and blue the primary colors for subtractive mixture.
But wait, how can we see black if it reflects no light?
Because that's what your eye sees.
Black, like darkness, is your eye perceiving or seeing a total lack of light.
Ah, to see or not to see.
That is the question?
Oh. OK. So we know how colors are made and how many colors humans can see.
But how did the colors get their names?
I'm not talking Scarlet, mac and cheese, and aquamarine.
I'm talking the basics like red, yellow, green, blue, black, and white.
The answer is right after this quick break.
Have you ever had that moment where your kiddo looks up at you from the kitchen table, frustrated, stuck on their homework, and you want so badly to help them?
but you just can't?
Not because you don't care, but because school is different now.
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The grammar rules have changed.
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Every parent I know has been here.
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And just like who smarted, iXcel makes learning fun.
Your kids get instant feedback and even earn rewards.
So if you're trying to set your child up for success and set them up with iXcel, it works and it's fun.
And now who smarted listeners get 20 % off when you sign up today at ixl .com slash smarted, That's Ixl .com slash smarted, 20 % off so you can get the most effective learning program out there at the best price and be the helpful parent that you were meant to be.
Okay, let's be honest. Life is a lot right now.
Between school drop -offs, back -to -back meetings, half -folded laundry and texts you forgot to reply to, who has time to launch that business idea that's been living in your Notes app since 2021, especially with that one thing standing between you and finally getting your business out into the world.
A website, that part always feels like a brick wall.
You want it to look professional, you want it to work, and you don't wanna spend a lot of money on it.
That's why I'm telling you, use Squarespace.
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Three months from now, don't let the reason you still haven't launched your business be but the website.
I built my first Squarespace site in less than a half hour.
This is the sign for you to build yours.
Go to squarespace .com slash smarted and use code smarted for a free trial and 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain.
You don't need more time.
You just need the right tool.
That's Squarespace.
A whole new season of Terrestrials is coming, Radiolab's family friendly show all about nature.
This season we are back with a new batch of episodes where we come face to snout with some of the wildest, gnarliest creatures on this planet.
We discover music, magic, medicine, and a whole lot of fun starting April 17 all on the Radio Lab for Kids feed wherever you listen to podcasts.
Now back to who smarted.
Okay smarty pants, it's time to find out how basic colors got their names.
Care to shine some light on the subject, Rea?
Sure, English has 11 basic color words.
There's red, pink, orange, yellow, Green, blue, purple, white, black, grey, and brown.
Black and white, the earliest colour words in the English language, didn't originate as colour terms. Black comes from a word meaning burnt.
And white comes from a word meaning shining.
That makes sense. When something gets burnt, it turns dark or black.
And When Something Shines, It's Bright Or White Smarty Pants, Which Color Word Do You Think Developed Next In The English Language?
I'll Give You A Hint.
It's The Same As A Wildly Popular Condiment.
If You Said Yellow Like Mustard Sorry That's Incorrect.
If You Said Green Like Relish That's Also Incorrect.
But If You Said Red Thinking Of Delicious Ketchup You're the top tomato.
Red derives from the Sanskrit radhaira, meaning bloody.
In Old English, one of the earliest -written records of the word red is from 897 CE, over 1000 years ago.
Wow! Are there any other color words with written records that old?
Yes, yellow and green appear in Old English around the same time.
Other colors like blue, brown, and violet appear later, pretty much in that order.
But words for colors don't always describe, well, colors.
They can describe feelings, moods, or qualities.
For instance, yellow can mean cowardly.
Red can signal embarrassment or anger.
And if you say you're feeling blue, that means what, smarty pants?
Did you say sad? That's right.
Say, Rhea, were any of these meanings present when the words for colors developed?
For those colors, I'm not quite sure.
But the quality that Green describes was in the meaning of the word from way back.
Smarty pants. What feeling, mood, or condition does Green describe?
Is it A, feeling happy...
B, wanting a pickle...
Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom.
Or C, being young and immature.
No! The answer is C, being young and immature.
No! The word green derives from the proto -Germanic gro -ney.
Later, when it evolved into the old English green, it meant the color green, as well as youth and immaturity.
Cool! With so many amazing colors to choose from, you'd think it would be hard to pick a favorite.
But most people have one.
Mine is orange. What about you smarty pants shout out your favorite color or colors Nice what about you Rhea?
As white light? I contain all the colors.
I can't play favorites Make sense.
Wanna hear something wild?
When you look at an object, that's your favorite color.
Guess what? That object contains every single color, but your favorite color It's true.
In order for you to see that color, that color has to be reflected to your eye.
Which means it's not in the object.
For example, an orange basketball is every color, except orange.
Whoa. I don't know about you, smarty pants.
But color me amazed.
If you think that's amazing, why do you try my meat cake?
A bright and colorful shout out to Isaac in Wellington, New Zealand.
We hear you love how Who Smarted makes you smarter, is funny, and is part of your daily ride to school.
Oh, and you will love when the Trustee Narrator talks about pizza.
Yep, now I'm hungry.
This episode, Colors, was written by Daniel Gold and voiced by Melissa Magenta Del Toro -Shapner, Adam Teal Davis, and Jerry Kolber.
Technical direction and sound design by Josh Hazel -Han.
Who Smarted is recorded and mixed at The Relic Room Studios.
Our associate producer is Max Chartreuse -Kamaski.
The theme song is by Brian Blue Steel Soares, with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex Davis.
Who Smarted was created and produced by Adam Tex Davis and Jerry Kolber.
This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.
