MOST WHITES ARE GREYS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 1, 16 January 1937, Page 11

MOST WHITES ARE GREYS

Perfect white exists only as an unattainable seientific standard. All substances filling the layman's conception of whiteness are actually darker, greyer than the perfect white. The nearest col'ours to the perfect white are those of the purest chalk or a very thick layer of new-fallen snow. But even these fall short of science 's rigid standard. The increasingly wide use of the word white in connection with commereial articles, however, especially in advertising, made scientifie reeognition imperative. Besearch to determine a method of grading these yarying shades of white was undertaken in the Massacliusetts Institute of Technology colour

laboratory, says ( Science Service." Washington, D.C. The results, which constitiite the basis of al] modern discus^ions of. whiteness, have been( explained by Dr." David L. MacAdam, of M.I.T., who conducted much of the research. All substances which are "ordinaxily called white, he told the conference, differ from the perfect white in one or two Ways. All are darker, greyer. than the perfect white. Some may show no other difference, and these are regarded as greys of differing degrees of brightness. They are commonly called whites, however, the brighter substanees being regarded as whiter than the others.