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Asked by PenelopeCSB to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 10 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by мocнιĸarage, Aleya_xo.
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Vicky Bayliss answered on 10 Mar 2015:
ooo I saw this on facebook, it was weird. There are actually some good articles on this on-line now – I believe there is one on the bbc website…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/31661272
Physics doesn’t help me answer it unfortunately, so you will have to rely on the news.
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Oliver Brown answered on 11 Mar 2015:
It was definitely black and blue though…
A lot of it was to do with people correcting for the fact that they thought the dress was in shadow, when what actually happened was the camera on the phone had tried to correct for the fact that the background was much more brightly lit.
I’ve worked with lighting shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as at my student union, and my flatmate is a photography nerd so it wasn’t hard for us to work out what had happened!
As Vicky pointed out though, it’s more of a psychology thing with the way people mentally adjust what they see than a physics thing, so it’s been better explained in articles like the one she linked to than we could manage!
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Michele Faucci Giannelli answered on 11 Mar 2015:
The previous two answers say it all. If you want to see something similar search for the magenta colour. It actually does not exists in nature and it is an artefact of our brain when monocromatic blue and red light are shown together. It is actually -green!
The festivalofthespokennerd had a really good section on this. -
Jaclyn Bell answered on 14 Mar 2015:
Yeah I can’t say much more that these guys unfortunately! I heard that people who saw white and gold (me included) spent more time outside – which is why people in office based jobs saw the blue and black version… but I have heard loads of other stories through Facebook too so I’m not quite sure which is the most scientifically sound! 😕
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