Hearing Color

---

I was recently reminded of a cool TED Talk I came across several years ago when I was teaching a 7th grade physical science course. After talking about sound waves, the students were learning about the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike sound, light has both wave and particle behaviour, but it is similar to sound in that different wavelengths or frequencies are perceived uniquely. With sound you experience what we call a tone or note, and with light we call it a color. While the wavelength and frequency of the sound or light is concrete and measureable, the way an individual hears or sees it may not be. Students always freak out when they realize that the way they see color may be completely different from their friend’s experience. What you see when you call it blue may not look like what someone else sees when they call it blue. At the end of the day, I guess it doesn’t really matter since everyone learns to call it blue, so we agree on its name. The TED Talk shows how a cyborg who can only see in grayscale uses the similarities between sound and light waves to observe and experience the world. It’s really fun when the students get interested and excited about what’s going on in class, and in this case, at least I know the students really enjoyed the TED Talk!