Does anyone really care what colour the dress is?

In Limbo

27 Feb 2015

Social media pretty much went into melt down today over whether the dress pictured below is gold and white, or blue and black. We were too busy listening to AMA president Brian Owler talk about health policy stuff to notice…until now.

So here’s the dress that caused the fuss.

Credit: Tumblr

Credit: Tumblr

 

It looks black and blue to us but apparently we are in the minority. According to a BuzzFeed poll  75% of people think it is white and gold while only 25% swear it is blue and black.

Whatever, it’s probably the most spectacular first world problem we’ve seen this week.  

Professor Andrew Metha from the Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences at the University of Melbourne, who proves to be a little more enthusiastic than us, says its a great illusion and he’s “not surprised its going viral.”

He gives a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. Apparently we need to consider where the picture was taken because different conditions – sunny, cloudy etc – have a “very different spectral profile”.

He then goes onto to talk about distribution of photon energies “raining onto our retinas” by which point we have definitely lost interest.

If you’d like the full scientific explanation email [email protected] before the dress changes colour and we’ll put you out of your misery.

 

 

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