Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2019 September 19

= September 19 =

iliotibial band
I’m not clear on whether this band connects two bones or not, but do they consider this band, (aka the “I T” band), different from a ligament or a tendon, and if so for what reason? Like although a connector, possibly its purpose is different from most ligaments? Or because it is shaped like a band, unlike other ligaments? Or is its composition possibly way different than what most ligaments/tendons are made of?Rich (talk) 18:04, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Fascia lata gives you (at least part of) the explanation. Gem fr (talk) 18:35, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Ancient Greeks and colorblindness
Do we have something on Greeks and colorblindness on WP? I was reading Gardner's Fads and Fallacies and he offhand blasted William Gladstone for purporting Greeks were colorblind based on Homer's weird use of colors. I'd heard of this idea before but I can't find anything about it here except a link to a book that may be what Gardner was referring to, in Gladstone's article. 95.168.118.2 (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I added three links. —Tamfang (talk) 23:42, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about the specifics of this particular discussion, but part of the explanation of Homer's use of specific colors may have to do with a rather well-known, but contentious, concept in Historical linguistics relating to the evolution of color terms within speech communities. The rather famous work Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution kicked the whole mess off, and you can find more reading at the Wikipedia article titled Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate.  If I were starting to research your questions regarding the use of color terms in ancient Greek writings, I'd start there.  -- Jayron 32 19:09, 19 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Agreed. In order to define colors universally, you'd need a reference which is constant with time. Now we could use specific light frequencies, but of course that wasn't available to them. Many references, like the colors of flowers, animals, spices, natural dyes or gems, may vary. Even the color of the sea might vary with salinity, algae, etc. And paintings, sculptures, etc., that had color then may have lost that color by now or the colors may have changed. I suppose, if they had thought this through, they could have set up a prism with a fixture such that when sunlight hit it it would be spread out into colors on the fixture, where those colors were labeled. If that artifact still existed, we could then determine what each color name meant to them. I won't hold my breath to find such an artifact, though.SinisterLefty (talk) 19:15, 19 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Homer is told to have been plainly blind, so, well, yes, that also imply "color-blind", but... There are quite a number of universally, and at all time, available things to name colors : charcoal (cold, or red hot), gold, blood, Lapis lazuli, silver, tree leaves and grass, ripe wheat, chalk, milk, ... Gem fr (talk) 19:39, 19 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Gold changes color with impurities, blood and silver with oxidation, wheat/tree leaves/grass with age/species/nutrients, milk with fat content (which varies by species/breed/diet of the mammal). You could define "red hot" by the temperature of a given material, but then they would need thermometers capable of accurately measuring those temps. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:55, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Are you not tired of quibbling? Gem fr (talk) 00:30, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * That's not quibbling, but stating that the suggestions you made are not safe to use as colour benchmarks. "Red-hot charcoal" uses a colour to define itself; and "tree leaves" could cover any colour from deep purple to white. Bazza (talk) 11:39, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The color of burning embers, the median color of tree leaves, and the color of freshly spilt blood probably have not changed much; I don't think anyone was proposing to use a sample of preserved ancient blood as a standard. —Tamfang (talk) 23:42, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Even fresh blood can be either dark red or bright red depending on it's from a vein or artery: . Also, the light will affect the color (in dim light dark red appears black). SinisterLefty (talk) 23:55, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * In Swahili, I am given to understand that 'green' is expressed as "of the colour of leaves"; they're probably not bothered by the existence of exceptional purple trees. —Tamfang (talk) 23:45, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Explanation is here. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 09:35, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Speculation aside, Gladstone's argument is thoroughly presented here. His conclusions are ... unlikely to receive much support today, but he presents the evidence in his usual magisteral manner. HenryFlower 12:47, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Homer described the color of the sea as the color of wine, apparently without seeing it. Not a bad approximation. AboutFace 22 (talk) 13:38, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * No, he did not. Gladstone, as you'd expect, discusses the use of οἴνοψ, and modern scholars and translators would generally agree with him in this case that it refers to darkness, not colour. HenryFlower 14:34, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Further to this, we must remember that the Ancient Greeks habitually mixed various substances into their wines (hence all those "mighty mixing bowls"), which might mean that their 'default' wine colour was not what we might suppose today. As well as the "wine-dark sea", Homer also repeatedly mentions "rosy-fingered Dawn", although the dawn sky can have a variety of colours at different times. Since the historical elements of the Homeric poems had been orally transmitted for centuries until the Greeks' re-acquisition of writing, such repeated stock formulae might be just poetical aids to memory rather than descriptions intended to be taken literally. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.210.107 (talk) 14:53, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies everyone. The links were especially interesting. 212.15.179.60 (talk) 18:46, 21 September 2019 (UTC)