Twitter debates whether tennis balls are green or yellow
First, it was "The Dress." Now, the internet is divided about the true color of tennis balls.
The debate started last month after YouTube creator CGP Grey tweeted a poll asking if people would describe the color of tennis balls as green, yellow, or something else (some have suggested they're chartreuse).
Please help resolve a marital dispute.
— CGP Grey (@cgpgrey) February 8, 2018
You would describe the color of a tennis ball as:
Roger Federer offered his opinion Monday while in Chicago to promote the Laver Cup.
OKAY ITS OFFICIAL MY DAD JUST ASKED @rogerfederer IF TENNIS BALLS ARE YELLOW OR GREEN AND HE SAID THEY ARE YELLOW pic.twitter.com/EXdXRr0oFa
— Delaney Dold (@delaneyanndold) March 19, 2018
His answer did little to settle the debate, though.
Why would you play on green grass with a green ball? Of course it’s yellow 👌🏼👌🏼
— luke (@uberluke86) March 20, 2018
Or fluorescent green which appears like yellow...
— SolarDragon (@SolarStreams) March 20, 2018
if roger says they're yellow, theyr yellow 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/anh3Hb8tWl
— narelle (@ensquaredx2) March 19, 2018
Tennis balls are chartreuse! Its the torquoise pendant of yellow-green
— beachmobjellies (@beachmobjellies) March 20, 2018
In 1972 the International Tennis Federation ITF said tennis balls should be YELLOW if you see green get your eyes checked or reconsider your definition of green.
— Bill Arends (@Billarends) March 21, 2018
Fedex Is Lying To Your Father They Are Green
— THE_Terminator (@MysticBalaa) March 21, 2018
Bevil Conway, a researcher who studies color perception at the National Institutes of Health's National Eye Institute in Maryland, offered the following explanation when contacted by The Atlantic's Marina Koren:
"I'm not looking at any tennis balls now, but I think they are yellow," he said. "I make this decision as much on the basis of what I think I know about tennis balls - that they are yellow - as I do on what color I recall that they looked when I last saw one.
"In other words, like the color of a lot of objects, how we label (a tennis ball) is determined both by perceptual and cognitive factors: the actual physical light entering your eye and ... knowledge about what people have typically labeled the objects."