Is clear a color?

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Is clear a color?

There's no such thing as clear paint or clear crayons, so I vote no.

clear is the lack of color just as when talking in pigments, white is the absence of color while when talking about light, white is the combination of all colors of the visible spectrum.

The opposite is true respectively when talking about black.

To me, clear is a colour.


As a kid I used to call it "invisible".

It's a lack of color, but then it's different than black or white, too... I suppose the difference there is diffusion and/or reflectivity.

It takes on the color of whatever is behind it, so...
I guess I'd put it in a class that is bigger than color, but includes color. IOW, the class of { color + reflectivity + diffusion + iridescence(?) + other optical properties }.

Oh, and no clear crayons, but there is clear nail polish. :p

While all colors are defined by what wavelength the light has that is being reflected, clear is transmitting refracted light instead.

No.

no, since the opposite of clear is opaque.

Clear is not a colour. It is the property of something that does not change the properties of light shining through it. Asking if clear is a colour is like asking if cooking is a taste.

I'd say no.

And yet, clear/transparent is my favourite (non-)colour: I've got a transparent (glass-top) desk, a transparent (perspex) TV table, a transparent stapler, a transparent hole punch, a transparent filing tray, a transparent telephone, a translucent plastic bedside table... don't know why, but I've always had this obsession with transparent things.

I'm CONFUSED!! !! !

The light being reflected would be the color then, not the 'clear', just like when you look in the mirror, you dont call the mirror a color, like if I hold up a red paper in front of a mirror, you dont call the mirror red, it is the paper that is red, it is red light being reflected into our eyes. Most of the time though, from what we use to clean what is clear, and dirt and everything on the surface, there is usually a amount of color attached to the clear, so I wonder how much color needs to be attached before you cant label it as clear anymore

Actually, roadracer, color is the perception of light coming from a source. Holding a piece of red paper in front of a mirror is "technically" making the mirror red. But in the known context that the mirror is actually a mirror, we perceive the image of the paper and attribute the color mentally through the mirror and to the paper.

So it is actually changing the color of the mirror then, it is making it red? I just thought the light was being reflected, I guess I am wrong then

Color is, like I said, the perception of the light entering your eyes. That's all there is to it. Since the mirror can only reflect light (close to perfectly), the mirror changes color all the time depending on what it mirrors.