Snoggums Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 Why is blue shift not called violet shift? I never got the reason, I realize it's possible that there is no reason other then it's easier to say, but I would love a solid answer. Red and violet are at opposite ends of the visible light spectrum, it would make sense to call it violet shift instead of blue shift. Now here's where you make me feel like an idiot because I'm worrying about such a trivial thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iNow Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 What an interesting question. Why don't we call it gamma shift? Probably has something to do with blue being a more prominent color in the visual area of the electromagnetic question, but I'm really not sure. Probably has everything to do with the first person who published a paper about the "increase in frequency" resulting from motion relative to an observer, and what they thought. I'm just not sure, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 Blue is a primary color, and more manly. Seriously, though, I think it's more from narrowing the choices to red-green-blue, rather than ROYGBIV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMongoose Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 Also, blue is one syllable and physicists are lazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Skeptic Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 Cause it came out of the blue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark matter Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 Maybe because astronomers like to discriminate against purple. Or maybe, they don't think violet looks good on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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