On Walking the Color Wheel

July 2004

In an attempt to reach (find) my students I recently guided them on an imaginary walk on a color wheel.  Starting with the dark blue carpet beneath my feet and their desks, I suggested that we imagine this blue carpet to be part of a very long, circular path of carpet that would move through all colors and eventually return (as circles want to do) to our very point of blue origin.  Once the carpet circle was complete, the issue of beginning and ending of said circle could be debated long past their required days of attendance—although, once we began on this journey, they seemed to forget the clock altogether--a fantasy of my own for my junior high summer school students.  I explained, as I imagined it, one could start walking along this carpet of gradual change, yet the change would be so subtle one could walk from “blue” to “red” to “yellow” to “blue” and not notice the change unless a reference to another point on the wheel was established. (this, of course, is because of the walker’s close proximity to the carpet’s changing color). Just as we walk on the curved surface of the earth, we cannot detect any of its round or oval shape.  We are too close to see.

11/9/04

Another color wheel observation: we 're flying at 37,000 feet 5:30 pm November 2004, North to South, West Coast.  Out my window on the left, the sky is dark and indistinguishable from the clouds I know are below; but out the right window in the West, the sky is a gradient blue descending into a dirty, faded orange horizon bordering a dark, thick cloud covered floor.  If the ceiling were transparent I'd see dark to light, East to West.  Walking (or flying) the color wheel again.

6/22/05

It’s been nearly a year since I first started walking the color wheel.  I haven’t exactly been walking, but I have been thinking about the proposed journey from time to time, and have thought more than once that there are a whole lot of folks who would be much better for a like trip themselves.  Question:  If a house’s exterior walls were painted all the colors of the color wheel in indistinguishable gradations from one tint/hue/shade to the next as discussed earlier, how big would a house have to be (circumference) for an observing pedestrian to circle without noticing the colors change?  How close should the observer be?  How close is too close?  How far is too far?  These are the questions they should be asking in school…well, okay…I will.