And from earlier this week....

[conuly]

We were sitting around playing I Spy. Evangeline, on her turn, went with "I spy something WHITE", which turned out to be a mirror.

Ana: NO! A mirror isn't white!
Evangeline: Yes it IS!
Ana: NO IT IS NOT!
Evangeline: YES IT IS TOO!
Ana: A mirror is ALL colors!
Evangeline: IT IS WHITE!
Both of them: TELL HER!
Me: Uh... hey, so, I'm going on a trip and I'm bringing an apple! Ana, you're next!

But this leaves me with the lingering, unanswered question...

What the heck kinda color IS a mirror, anyway?

Comments

[steorra]

The colour of whatever's reflected in it? Which I suppose is close to Ana's answer.

But in some ways, white actually isn't a bad answer either - non-luminous white objects are white because they reflect all colours of visible light in roughly equal proportions. Normal mirrors also reflect all colours of visible light in roughly equal proportions - they just do it in a much more organized way, rather than scattering and blending them all about.

I can imagine someone saying silver, too.

[lakidaa.livejournal.com]

Technically, it'd be silver, because of the backing.

But realistically, it's subjectively-colored.

I spy something subjective! :B

[rachelkachel]

In a way, it is white. White is made of all colors, for one thing; plus, a green-tinted mirror you would probably call green. All objects rely on their surroundings for their color (without light, of course, there's no color). Mirrors just do less scrambling of the input.

In reality, I think I'd call it silver.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I'd generally call a mirror silver. Though a good argument can be made for it being whatever the color it's reflecting at the time.

[conuly]

When Evangeline wishes to refer to something as "silver" - a skillet, a spoon, and I guess a mirror - she calls it "white".

[marveen.livejournal.com]

The kid's good, since true pure silver is indeed "white"--set it next to the steely color we think of as silver (alloys) and it will look yellowish by comparison.

I was amazed to learn this, since I grew up thinking silver was, well, grey metallic because you almost never see unalloyed silver.

[conuly]

Yeah, I mean, the silver crayon is gray.

But I'm not sure she's ever seen silver of any color. Just stainless steel, which of course we SAY is silver (the color) but which is not silver the metal.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Like, I totally get the silver thing. Maybe there's something in the back of my mind telling me all about how spoons reflect light the same way and they're silver, or something... But in the end I'd go with "clear", the way a window is.
Also, yeah, I'd totally tell them they're both right since all colors is white.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought of "transparent", too.

[siderea]

What everyone else said. Also, this is a great opportunity to teach the word "mu".

[conuly]

Maybe next time. The moment, I'm afraid, has passed.

Completely OT

[blackhanddpants.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the mirror (aren't kids fun?), but I saw this in a catalog and I thought that if you had not seen it, you should. It's a NYC puzzle. First you do the flat part, that has the streets all laid out, and then you put scale models of buildings on it -- 125 of them, if I remember correctly, and it comes with a timeline that lets you build the city in different eras.

http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/ngs/product/kids/toys-and-games/all-games/4-d-cityscape-new-york-city-puzzle

Re: Completely OT

[conuly]

That's actually pretty awesome, but at that price? I'm sure there must be a catch, that price is too low to be believed!