interplanetary society for the hard of thinking

notmensa members strive for knowledge, understanding and longer tea breaks - believing that the latter will bring about world peace.

The following hypothesis is currently under consideration by our members.  

Writing black on black makes words difficult to read

From Karl Gretz

Contrast is the difference in visual properties that makes an object (or its
representation in an image) distinguishable from other objects and the
background. In visual perception of the real world, contrast is determined
by the difference in the color and brightness of the object and other
objects within the same field of view.

Contrast is calculated using the formula:

Lmax - Lmin
___________

Lmax + Lmin

where Lmax is the maximum luminance and Lmin is the minimum luminance value.

Using this formula, someone using a black marker drawing on a black piece of
paper, Lmax would represent the black marker (the desired distinguishable
object), and Lmin would represent the black paper (the only object in the
field of view, since the writing is isolated exculsively to the paper).

See equation below:

0 (black marker) - 0 (black paper)
___________________________
0 (black maker) + 0 (black paper)


The problem in this case, and in all cases where the minumum and maximum
luminecent vaules are the same, is that the end result to the above equation
is zero over zero, an integer that does not and can not exist. The fact that
this number does not exist is directly corolated to the illegibility of
black writing on black surfaces. An impossible mathematical equation with no
solution cannot be applied to real world situations and yield desirable
results from the applied equation. Subsequently, this not only proves that
black writing on black surfaces is hard to read, but in theory suggests that
any color painted on a surface of the same color will be hard to read as
well, which surprisingly brings up more questions than it answers.
 

The Contribution below is from Alice Springs

"Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit,

you would stay out and your dog would go in."

- Mark Twain

"Man is a dog's idea of what God should be."

- Holbrook Jackson

"The average dog is a nicer person than the average person."

- Andrew A. Rooney

"To his dog, every man is King;

hence the constant popularity of dogs."

- Aldous Huxley

"If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons."

- James Thurber

"Reverence: the spiritual attitude of a man to a god

and a dog to a man."

- Ambrose Bierce

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend:

and inside a dog, it's too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx

"A dog is not "almost human," and I know of no greater insult to the canine race than to describe it as such."

- John Holmes

"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience."

- Woodrow Wilson

"The disposition of noble dogs is to be gentle with people they know and the opposite with those they don't know...How, then, can the dog be anything other than a lover of learning since it defines what's its own and what's alien."

- Plato

"The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make

a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you,

but he will make a fool of himself too."

- Samuel Butler

Join the debate by submitting a thesis of not less than 100 words.

(  After joining notmensa send contributions to notmensasociety (at) yahoo.co.uk ) 

The best thesis will be added to the website and the most original contributors will be awarded an Honorary Professorship of notmensa