If you have spent time online in the past day or so, you have probably seen this dress. It presents a real conundrum, because while many people see a dress that is white and gold, many others see a dress that is black and blue.
On smosh, someone attempted to give a scientific explanation for why people are seeing different colors when they look at this dress.
Basically, your eyes have rods and cones, which are cells that define what you see. The cones see color, and the rods see shades, such as black, grey, and white. Cones do their best work when there is enough light passing through. There are different ways that colors can be mixed as well these are additive mixing and subtractive mixing. With additive mixing, when you combine the three primary colors of light (red, blue, and green), you will see pure white. With subtractive mixing, you will see black.
If you see a dress that is blue and black, it means that your cones function very well, and your eyes are doing subtractive mixing. If you see white and gold, it means your eyes do not work very well in dim light, so the rods in your retinas are seeing white, and additive mixing is going on to produce the gold color you are seeing.
Whatever the explanation, it still boggles a lot of minds that people could see the same thing so differently. What color do you see when you see this dress?
