Full Spectrum: How the Science of Color Made Us Modern

by Adam Rogers

Overview

"Informative and entertaining...Rogers is a seasoned raconteur, unreeling an eons-spanning tale with skill." —Wall Street Journal

A lively account of our age-old quest for brighter colors, which changed the way we see the world, from the best-selling author of Proof: The Science of Booze

From kelly green to millennial pink, our world is graced with a richness of colors. But our human-made colors haven’t always matched nature’s kaleidoscopic array. To reach those brightest heights required millennia of remarkable innovation and a fascinating exchange of ideas between science and craft that’s allowed for the most luminous manifestations of our built and adorned world.
 
In Full Spectrum, Rogers takes us on that globe-trotting journey, tracing an arc from the earliest humans to our digitized, synthesized present and future. We meet our ancestors mashing charcoal in caves, Silk Road merchants competing for the best ceramics, and textile artists cracking the centuries-old mystery of how colors mix, before shooting to the modern era for high-stakes corporate espionage and the digital revolution that’s rewriting the rules of color forever. 
 
In prose as vibrant as its subject, Rogers opens the door to Oz, sharing the liveliest events of an expansive human quest—to make a brighter, more beautiful world—and along the way, proving why he’s “one of the best science writers around.”*
*National Geographic

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328519146
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	418
Sales rank:	548,967
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

ADAM ROGERS is the New York Times best-selling author of Proof: The Science of Booze, a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and winner of the IACP Award for Best Wine, Beer, or Spirits Book and the Gourmand Award for Best Spirits Book in the United States. He is a deputy editor at Wired, where his feature story “The Angels’ Share” won the 2011 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. Before coming to Wired, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and a writer covering science and technology for Newsweek. He lives in Oakland, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 Earth Tones 1

Chapter 2 Ceramics 18

Chapter 3 Rainbows 37

Chapter 4 The Lead White Of Commerce 59

Chapter 5 World's Fair 83

Chapter 6 Titanium White 106

Chapter 7 Color Words 138

Chapter 8 The Dress 160

Chapter 9 Fake Colors And Color Fakes 175

Chapter 10 Screens 189

Conclusion 213

Afterword: Starlight 225

Acknowledgments 235

Notes 239

Bibliography 273

Index 309

Editorial Reviews

03/08/2021

Science writer Rogers (Proof) considers physics, art, neuroscience, and linguistics in this breezy, accessible survey of how humans use, understand, and perceive color. To prove that learning how to capture colors “has been nothing less than the millennia-long process of becoming a thinking species with multiple cultures,” Rogers visits a 100,000-year-old paint shop in South Africa’s Blomblos caves, explores Newton’s discovery of how the refraction of light produces colors, and describes the “Pointers gamut,” a map of all colors that can be seen by the human eye that was created in the 1970s. Those with a scientific bent will enjoy the author’s explanation of titanium dioxide, the “whitest pigment on Earth,” used in paints, paper, and ceramics, as well as the “blackest black,” called Vantablack, for which artist Anish Kapour has exclusive rights to use in paint-form. There’s also a lucid explanation of how the eyes and brain integrate information to perceive color. The author’s passion for his subject becomes quickly apparent as he offers a vivid tour of the complexities behind the everyday experience of seeing the colors that give “our universe shape.” With its vast range of perspectives, there’s something in this investigation for everyone. Agent: Eric Lupfer, Fletcher and Co. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for FULL SPECTRUM and Adam Rogers  "Informative and entertaining...Rogers is a seasoned raconteur, unreeling an eons-spanning tale with skill, mixing in didactic material, interviews with experts and whimsy...Whether you’re feeling blue, in the pink, or green with envy, Mr. Rogers sheds light on the meaning of color in our lives." — Wall Street Journal

"This book is the best kind of deep dive into its subject, and Adam Rogers is my favorite kind of science writer. Reading this book feels like having a long, fascinating and delicious meal with the most interesting person you know."  — Adam Savage, executive producer and co-host of Mythbusters, science communicator, and maker

"I love it when someone wakes me up to see what I was sleepwalking through. Adam Roger does that in this book. He showed me that the colors we see everywhere today are technologies we invented! Invented colors! Head explodes!"  — Kevin Kelly, New York Times-bestselling author of The Inevitable

 “This is a wonderfully human book that takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic tour of the world of color science. It is one of those books that makes you see everything afresh—you’ll start identifying pigments everywhere, and diving back into the book to discover the intellectual quest behind them."  — Mark Miodownik, New York Times-bestselling author of Stuff Matters and Liquid Rules

"Adam Rogers' book, Full Spectrum, is everything you'd want from a book about color—shining with the full gem-stone range of blues, golds, greens and carnelian reds that tint the world around us. But woven through it, like the threads of a tapestry is so much more: history, science, the rainbow spectrum of human culture in its many hues. Exceptional books about science are rare. This is one of them."  — Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Poison Squad and The Poisoner's Handbook

"There’s a word for the color you see when you turn off the lights, it’s called “eigengrau”, or brain grey. Reading this book is like cranking the dimmer switch up, chapter by chapter, from eigengrau to Full Spectrum. Illuminating, funny and utterly fascinating, Adam Rogers draws on history, chemistry, biology and geology to reveal that we’ve engineered a far more colorful world than the one our ancestors inhabited. Prepare to be dazzled; after you read this book, you’ll never see color the same way again."  — Ziya Tong, science broadcaster & author of The Reality Bubble

“One of the best science writers around.”  — National Geographic

"Breezy, accessible...The author’s passion for his subject becomes quickly apparent as he offers a vivid tour of the complexities behind the everyday experience of seeing the colors that give 'our universe shape.' With its vast range of perspectives, there’s something in this investigation for everyone."   — Publishers Weekly

"Sharp, often jocular...He brings a tinder-dry humor and evident enthusiasm for the subject. From opsins to Technicolor movies, Rogers covers the colorscape with brio, dash, and crystal clearness."  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

From the Publisher

"This book is the best kind of deep dive into its subject, and Adam Rogers is my favorite kind of science writer. Reading this book feels like having a long, fascinating and delicious meal with the most interesting person you know." 

Adam Savage

"Adam Rogers' book, Full Spectrum, is everything you'd want from a book about color—shining with the full gem-stone range of blues, golds, greens and carnelian reds that tint the world around us. But woven through it, like the threads of a tapestry is so much more: history, science, the rainbow spectrum of human culture in its many hues. Exceptional books about science are rare. This is one of them." 

Deborah Blum

One of the best science writers around.” 

National Geographic

"I love it when someone wakes me up to see what I was sleepwalking through. Adam Roger does that in this book. He showed me that the colors we see everywhere today are technologies we invented! Invented colors! Head explodes!" 

Kevin Kelly

"There’s a word for the color you see when you turn off the lights, it’s called “eigengrau”, or brain grey. Reading this book is like cranking the dimmer switch up, chapter by chapter, from eigengrau to Full Spectrum. Illuminating, funny and utterly fascinating, Adam Rogers draws on history, chemistry, biology and geology to reveal that we’ve engineered a far more colorful world than the one our ancestors inhabited. Prepare to be dazzled; after you read this book, you’ll never see color the same way again." 

Ziya Tong

This is a wonderfully human book that takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic tour of the world of color science. It is one of those books that makes you see everything afresh—you’ll start identifying pigments everywhere, and diving back into the book to discover the intellectual quest behind them." 

Mark Miodownik

Praise for FULL SPECTRUM and Adam Rogers  "Informative and entertaining...Rogers is a seasoned raconteur, unreeling an eons-spanning tale with skill, mixing in didactic material, interviews with experts and whimsy...Whether you’re feeling blue, in the pink, or green with envy, Mr. Rogers sheds light on the meaning of color in our lives."

Wall Street Journal

Praise for FULL SPECTRUM and Adam Rogers  "Informative and entertaining...Rogers is a seasoned raconteur, unreeling an eons-spanning tale with skill, mixing in didactic material, interviews with experts and whimsy...Whether you’re feeling blue, in the pink, or green with envy, Mr. Rogers sheds light on the meaning of color in our lives."

Wall Street Journal

Michael Crouch's personable tone lends itself to storytelling, and there are plenty of tales to be told in this history of the human experience of color. Because the audiobook delves into history, culture, art, chemistry, biology, nature, economics, and politics, Crouch's peppy delivery is helpful when drier portions dominate. Author Adam Rogers's enthusiasm for the subject matter is evident, as are his buttoned-down humor and love of details. The audiobook explores how the reproduction of colors has changed the way we think and developed as a species. Even the naming of colors in different societies is a subject of philosophical interest. If you're curious why Colonial Americans didn't paint their interiors or why titanium oxide is in your paint and your sunscreen, this audiobook is for you. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2021 - AudioFile

Michael Crouch's personable tone lends itself to storytelling, and there are plenty of tales to be told in this history of the human experience of color. Because the audiobook delves into history, culture, art, chemistry, biology, nature, economics, and politics, Crouch's peppy delivery is helpful when drier portions dominate. Author Adam Rogers's enthusiasm for the subject matter is evident, as are his buttoned-down humor and love of details. The audiobook explores how the reproduction of colors has changed the way we think and developed as a species. Even the naming of colors in different societies is a subject of philosophical interest. If you're curious why Colonial Americans didn't paint their interiors or why titanium oxide is in your paint and your sunscreen, this audiobook is for you. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2021 - AudioFile

★ 2021-03-13
The author of Proof: The Science of Booze (2014) returns with a lucid study of the physics, chemistry, and neuroscience of color and its influence on the human condition.

The natural world is bursting with seemingly endless color, writes Wired deputy editor Rogers in this sharp, often jocular look at waves and particles, fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic and electrical fields, and the electromagnetic spectrum, of which humans only experience a small visual slice. Since prehistory, we have gone about repurposing objects around us; one example is the engineering of chemicals to provide color. Those colors are picked up by the photoreceptors in our eyes and then processed. Rogers discusses how our neurophysiological and psychophysiological impressions help create our sense of the world, examining color as knowledge (discovering a good place to find food), color as commerce (desire, rarity, trade), color as semiotics, “to know how someone will see those colors once applied.” Rogers is particularly illuminating in his discussions of the history of color and our ever growing appreciation of it, from Aristotle to Arab physicists to the Chinese to the caves at Lascaux and beyond, as craft expertise blossomed into a revolution that marched in parallel with that of optics. While the author is in his element exploring the evolution of dyes and pigments, from the highly toxic to the highly opaque and bright, he is on less firm ground when approaching the “salience” of color, its “cultural and personal significance”—of course, this is understandable given that science has only begun to plumb the subject. Rogers also makes valiant attempts to discern the universality of color—“Do people who speak different languages literally see different colors?”—and through all the scientific concepts, he brings a tinder-dry humor and evident enthusiasm for the subject.

From opsins to Technicolor movies, Rogers covers the colorscape with brio, dash, and crystal clearness.

Kirkus Reviews