Scientists Solve a 100-Year-Old Mystery in Color Vision

One of the most interesting science stories today comes from researchers who have finally resolved a key problem in a color theory first proposed by Erwin Schrödinger nearly a century ago. The study shows that many of the color qualities humans perceive are intrinsic to the mathematics of color space itself, helping explain why certain colors appear related to one another in the way they do.

The breakthrough could help to clarify the way in which the human visual system processes colour, and also to develop digital displays, imaging technology, virtual reality, medical displays and computer graphics. They give mathematicians a firmer basis to model human colour perception, scientists say.

The finding may one day contribute to the development of technologies that could better reproduce colors and enhance the way visual information is presented in the scientific or medical community. The achievement is being described as the completion of an important chapter in a scientific question that has remained open for nearly 100 years.