Why is brown such a “default” colour in nature?

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Brown seems to be such a default colour for things in nature and in day to life. Why is it so common for things to be or turn this colour in contrast to the vast array of other colours around?

In: Earth Science

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Because all those vast array of colors you see are actually the ability of the material to reflect a very specific wave length while also absorbing all other wave lengths. This is a difficult feat to accomplish and requires uniformity such as in crystals or very specific micro structures to pull off. For example the iridescent blue on butterfly wings of Morpho menelaus is the result of micro array of antennas exactly 2 μm apart producing it’s own refractive index to give it a vibrant blue color while absorbing all other wave lengths. However most things in nature are not uniform or structured and as a result will absorb and reflect a little of every wave length. This is equivalent to mixing a little of red, green and blue together (the color receivers in our eyes). So by default things lean towards chaos (the opposite of uniform and structure) which happen to be what we perceive as brown.

TLDR; Brown is the color of chaos.

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