Template:POTD/2026-05-05
Impossible colors are colors that do not appear in ordinary visual functioning. Different color theories suggest hypothetical colors that humans are incapable of perceiving for one reason or another, and fictional colors are routinely created in popular culture. While some such colors have no basis in reality, phenomena such as cone-cell fatigue enable colors to be perceived in certain circumstances that would not be otherwise. This image presents three demonstration templates for viewing chimerical colors, a type of impossible color that can only be seen when cone cells in the eyes become fatigued. Such colors are perceived after steadily looking at a strong color (in the left column), then looking at a different color (in the middle column) once the cone cells have become fatigued. These templates demonstrate three categories of chimerical colors: stygian colors, which are those that are simultaneously dark and impossibly saturated; self-luminous colors, which have a glowing effect even on non-luminescent media; and hyperbolic colors, which have a saturation beyond the gamut allowed under trichromatic theory.Template credit: Craig DeForest, after Paul Churchland; edited by Alexander Zhikun He