2/28/2015
Recently there is a hot topic circulating the internet. People are debating over the color of a dress. Is it white and gold or blue and black? What a silly question to ask, isn’t it very obvious? It is gold with white lace fringe, I thought. I was so aghast after my colleague squinted her eyes, trying to look harder at the photo, and said matter-of-factly that it is blue and black. In reality, this dress is blue with black lace fringe. However, according to a survey on the internet, around 75% of the populace said it is a gold and white color.
Why is that so? There is an interesting explanation for this phenomenon.
The brain always has to avoids seeing the colors reflected off of an object, so it cannot see the color of the object itself. Therefore, it depends on how your brain processes the brightness of your surroundings. The cells in your eyes help to decide the color of the dress. For example, if the brain sees the dress on a sunny day, the brain will get rid of the effect of gold part, and we will see the dress as dark blue and black. On the other hand, if the brain thinks that the dress is in shadow, it will attempt to discount the blue color, and we will see gold and white instead. In this context, we need to reconsider the saying “Seeing is believing” .
So now, tell me, what do you think is the color of the dress? Is it blue and black or gold and white?
I took out the sentence about the ambient light of night because it seemded superfluous and made the sentence prosaic.
Another note: Most English learners will realize that writers often bend the rules of grammar all the time in order to create a certain effect. Additionally, most people speak colloquial English that isn't perfectly grammatically correct. However, as someone who is still mastering the language, it is probably best not to begin sentences with words like "but, and, because" because more often than not, you will be writing an incomplete sentence, or it will just sound weird. People often start sentences with these words when speaking, but it's a bit too informal for most writing.
I loved this piece. I really liked the narrative voice that you used. Keep it up!
Love,
-R