‘The Dress’ Gives Us A Lesson In Science

Who knew that a dress would get everybody buzzing? Well, definitely not this guy. Is the dress, as reported by Buzzfeed, black and blue, white and gold? Who cares? Why in the bloody blue blazes were people everywhere going gaga over a dress? The buzz is not even about the dress that actress Lupita Nyong’o wore to the Academy Award show.

The dress, made by Calvin Klein with 6,000 pearls, is worth $150,000. It is the same dress that was stolen from a hotel room, only to be returned later, per Yahoo! Style.

It is a tale of two dresses and the one with the color controversy won.

Twitter nearly broke, Facebook news feeds were filled with thoughts and opinions, while news stations across America marveled – is it black and blue or white and gold?

Well, according to the Huffington Post, the dress, a mother of the bride’s dress, turned out to be black and blue.

The color of the dress was altered in the different photos. Perhaps it was an optical illusion as the aforementioned Huffington Post article suggest, the background of the where the photo was taken or was it altered due to the lighting in room?

This guy suggests all of the above.

The backdrop of a photo offers a lot of sway when it comes to the final picture. Take a photo with a sunny background, expect a slight blur, or ray of sunshine to alter the focus of the lens, thus making a color change. What is blue now morphs into a golden, perhaps even a bronze. If you were to have a palm tree in the middle of your shot, the final result will have less of a blur to it. The slight shade may turn the color blue into a blue-grey while black might actually look pink.

Different lighting inside of a room will have a similar effect. The colors would be slightly more refined depending on the tone of the walls.

Both the backdrop and/or the lighting can create an optical illusion, one that will cause the internet to go awry over a dress. The dress has undoubtedly become a phenomenon all due to the simple optics of a camera’s lens.

Below is another example of how a photograph can be altered.

One of the biggest rules in film is to not wear a bright color in front of a green screen. What happened to the dress is an example of the photographic equivalent. At least there is a science that is learned here. And because of science we have a dress that toyed with the minds of many.

Meanwhile, a very expensive dress went missing and we all seemed to forget about it. The crime of theft will probably go unsolved.

Who knew that the dress that would potentially break the internet would be the dress belonging to Cecilia Bleasdale? Not this guy. You can thank her for the science lesson.