By Carl Weese Light, natural or artificial, indoors or out, is
constantly variable. We notice the warm, reddish light of
sunrise and sunset, but there are subtle variations all the
time. We generally don’t notice the color of ambient light
because our eye/mind perceptual system adapts, much as it adapts
to changes in light intensity. For example, from outdoors on a
dark day, the windows of a house will look yellow if there are
tungsten lights inside. The observer standing outside is adapted
to the color of daylight and sees the yellow color of the
interior light, but if we enter the house we adapt almost
immediately. From inside, the room light seems normal while the
view out a window can look bright blue. Concentrate on what you
see through the window, and the color will quickly look right
again. The yellow/amber light from a standard light bulb has a
lower color temperature than daylight. Why is it referred to as
temperature? A black body radiator (think of an iron bar or
fireplace poker) gives off energy i