Green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combination of yellow and cyan; in the RGB color model, used on television and computer screens, it is one of the additive primary colors, along with red and blue, which are mixed in different combinations to create all other colors. By far the largest contributor to green in nature is chlorophyll, the chemical by which plants photosynthesize and convert sunlight into chemical energy. Many creatures have adapted to their green environments by taking on a green hue themselves as camouflage. Several minerals have a green color, including the emerald, which is colored green by its chromium content.
During post-classical and early modern Europe, green was the color commonly associated with wealth, merchants, bankers, and the gentry, while red was reserved for the nobility. For this reason, the costume of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and the benches in the British House of Commons are green while those in the House of Lords are red. It also has a long historical tradition as the color of Ireland and of Gaelic culture. It is the historic color of Islam, representing the lush vegetation of Paradise. It was the color of the banner of Muhammad, and is found in the flags of nearly all Islamic countries.
In surveys made in American, European, and Islamic countries, green is the color most commonly associated with nature, life, health, youth, spring, hope, and envy. In the European Union and the United States, green is also sometimes associated with toxicity and poor health, but in China and most of Asia, its associations are very positive, as the symbol of fertility and happiness. Because of its association with nature, it is the color of the environmental movement. Political groups advocating environmental protection and social justice describe themselves as part of the Green movement, some naming themselves Green parties. This has led to similar campaigns in advertising, as companies have sold green, or environmentally friendly, products. Green is also the traditional color of safety and permission; a green light means go ahead, a green card permits permanent residence in the United States.
Etymology and linguistic definitions
The word green comes from the Middle English and Old English word grene, which, like the German word grün, has the same root as the words grass and grow. It is from a Common Germanic *gronja-, which is also reflected in Old Norse grænn, Old High German gruoni, ultimately from a PIE root ghre- "to grow", and root-cognate with grass and to grow.The first recorded use of the word as a color term in Old English dates to ca. AD 700.
Latin with viridis also has a genuine and widely used term for "green". Related to virere "to grow" and ver "spring", it gave rise to words in several Romance languages, French vert, Italian verde. Likewise the Slavic languages with zelenъ. Ancient Greek also had a term for yellowish, pale green – χλωρός, chloros, cognate with χλοερός "verdant" and χλόη "chloe, the green of new growth".
Thus, the languages mentioned above have old terms for "green" which are derived from words for fresh, sprouting vegetation.
However, comparative linguistics makes clear that these terms were coined independently, over the past few millennia, and there is no identifiable single Proto-Indo-European or word for "green". For example, the Slavic zelenъ is cognate with Sanskrit "yellow, ochre, golden".
The Turkic languages also have jašɨl "green" or "yellowish green", compared to a Mongolian word for "meadow".
Languages where green and blue are one color
In some languages, including old Chinese, Thai, old Japanese, and Vietnamese, the same word can mean either blue or green. The Chinese character 青 has a meaning that covers both blue and green; blue and green are traditionally considered shades of "青". In more contemporary terms, they are 藍 and 綠 respectively. Japanese also has two terms that refer specifically to the color green, 緑 and グリーン. However, in Japan, although the traffic lights have the same colors as other countries have, the green light is described using the same word as for blue, aoi, because green is considered a shade of aoi; similarly, green variants of certain fruits and vegetables such as green apples, green shiso will be described with the word aoi. Vietnamese uses a single word for both blue and green, xanh, with variants such as xanh da trời, lam, and lục."Green" in modern European languages corresponds to about 520–570 nm, but many historical and non-European languages make other choices, e.g. using a term for the range of ca. 450–530 nm and another for ca. 530–590 nm. In the comparative study of color terms in the world's languages, green is only found as a separate category in languages with the fully developed range of six colors, or more rarely in systems with five colors. These languages have introduced supplementary vocabulary to denote "green", but these terms are recognizable as recent adoptions that are not in origin color terms. Thus, the Thai word เขียว kheīyw, besides meaning "green", also means "rank" and "smelly" and holds other unpleasant associations.
The Celtic languages had a term for "blue/green/grey", Proto-Celtic *glasto-, which gave rise to Old Irish glas "green, grey" and to Welsh glas "blue". This word is cognate with the Ancient Greek γλαυκός "bluish green", contrasting with χλωρός "yellowish green" discussed above.
In modern Japanese, the term for green is 緑, while the old term for "blue/green", blue now means "blue". But in certain contexts, green is still conventionally referred to as 青, as in blue traffic light and blue leaves, reflecting the absence of blue-green distinction in old Japanese.
In science
Color vision and colorimetry
In optics, the perception of green is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 495–570 nm. The sensitivity of the dark-adapted human eye is greatest at about 507 nm, a blue-green color, while the light-adapted eye is most sensitive about 555 nm, a yellow-green; these are the peak locations of the rod and cone luminosity functions.The perception of greenness is evoked by light which triggers the medium-wavelength M cone cells in the eye more than the long-wavelength L cones. Light which triggers this greenness response more than the yellowness or blueness of the other color opponent mechanism is called green. A green light source typically has a spectral power distribution dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 487–570 nm.
Human eyes have color receptors known as cone cells, of which there are three types. In some cases, one is missing or faulty, which can cause color blindness, including the common inability to distinguish red and yellow from green, known as deuteranopia or red-green color blindness.
Green is restful to the eye. Studies show that a green environment can reduce fatigue.
In the subtractive color system, used in painting and color printing, green is created by a combination of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; in the RGB color model, used on television and computer screens, it is one of the additive primary colors, along with red and blue, which are mixed in different combinations to create all other colors. On the HSV color wheel, also known as the RGB color wheel, the complement of green is magenta; that is, a color corresponding to an equal mixture of red and blue light. On a traditional color wheel, based on subtractive color, the complementary color to green is considered to be red.
In additive color devices such as computer displays and televisions, one of the primary light sources is typically a narrow-spectrum yellowish-green of dominant wavelength ≈550 nm; this "green" primary is combined with an orangish-red "red" primary and a purplish-blue "blue" primary to produce any color in between – the RGB color model. A unique green is produced on such a device by mixing light from the green primary with some light from the blue primary.
Lasers
s emitting in the green part of the spectrum are widely available to the general public in a wide range of output powers. Green laser pointers outputting at 532 nm are relatively inexpensive compared to other wavelengths of the same power, and are very popular due to their good beam quality and very high apparent brightness. The most common green lasers use diode pumped solid state technology to create the green light.An infrared laser diode at 808 nm is used to pump a crystal of neodymium-doped yttrium vanadium oxide or neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet and induces it to emit 281.76 THz. This deeper infrared light is then passed through another crystal containing potassium, titanium and phosphorus, whose non-linear properties generate light at a frequency that is twice that of the incident beam ; in this case corresponding to the wavelength of 532 nm.
Other green wavelengths are also available using DPSS technology ranging from 501 nm to 543 nm.
Green wavelengths are also available from gas lasers, including the helium–neon laser, the Argon-ion laser and the Krypton-ion laser, as well as liquid dye lasers. Green lasers have a wide variety of applications, including pointing, illumination, surgery, laser light shows, spectroscopy, interferometry, fluorescence, holography, machine vision, non-lethal weapons, and bird control.
As of mid-2011, direct green laser diodes at 510 nm and 500 nm have become generally available,
although the price remains relatively prohibitive for widespread public use. The efficiency of these lasers compared to that of DPSS green lasers
may also be limiting adoption of the diodes to niche uses.