Black is one of the strangest colors out there. One of the main reasons is that black isn’t a color in the traditional sense, but rather, it’s the absence of light that we can see.
Black appears in the world in much stranger ways than many people know about. Here are six strange facts that you didn’t know about the color black. What’s your favorite fact?
The blackest man-made coating swallows 99.965% of light
Vantablack is a special kind of black. It’s so black that you can’t even see its shape, and it absorbs approximately 99.965% of all light. Vantablack is human-made, created from tiny carbon tubes that trap the light. You can’t even tell whether a shape is flat or curved when it’s coated in Vantablack. It’s that dark.
Tires are black because carbon black changes the rubber
Tires didn’t use to be black but were actually a pale sort of color, almost like beige. Manufacturers later decided to mix tires with carbon black. It made the tires tougher & more heat-resistant, while also making them last longer.
Every tire looks the same shade today. It doesn’t matter what name is printed on the side.
“Black diamonds” are often carbonado
You might think that black diamonds are just regular jewels painted black. Not quite. They’re made from carbonado, a natural mix of diamond crystals & graphite.
Black diamonds have voids inside. They’re tougher than regular diamonds, and some scientists think they may have come from space. You can find them on Earth in Brazil & Africa.
In ancient Egypt, black symbolized fertile soil and new life
Not all societies see black as something negative. For ancient Egyptians, black represented life returning after the Nile flooded each year, and the word kmt quite literally meant “black land.”
Black soil meant rich soil. Rich soil made farming possible. The ancient Egyptians painted Osiris, who was their god of rebirth, with black skin in order to show growth, rather than death.
In Japan, blackened teeth were once fashionable
Today, we know that black teeth are a health problem. But not people in 10th-century Japan. They practiced something called Ohaguro, where married women & nobles would deliberately stain their teeth black.
They used an iron-based mixture that would eventually turn glossy after a few coats. Why did they do this? Because they thought it was a sign of elegance and maturity. Bizarrely, the mixture actually protected their teeth.
Some black clothes symbolized status
Wearing deep black was both difficult & expensive in medieval Europe. You had to use a lot of dye and rare ingredients, along with a lot of labor, to achieve black. Only the rich could afford to do so.
As a result, true black clothing was a sign of wealth and status, since it showed you could afford all of that hard work.
The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:
