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Richard Walker

The Colour of Magic

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Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 24 Sep 2017, 00:08

When I was quite young I formed the impression that the first few numbers were associated with particular colours.

Thus

  • One is white
  • Two is red
  • Three is yellow
  • Four is green
  • Five is yellow 
  • Six is red

After that the feeling becomes vague. I think there were once more, but only these few remain vivid to me. There are some other coloured numbers; for instance 

e = 2.718281828...

is yellow, no doubt of it.


Later I learned a little music, and found that keys had colours. C Major is red, A Minor green, F Major blue, D Minor an inderterminate colour, B flat Major green etc. I don't literally see the colours, but to me E Major is irrevocably yellow.

Do other people have similar experiences? Do they think of letters of the alphabet as coloured, for example?


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Nik Domican

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They do indeed.   Someone once explained it to me & it has a name.  I can't remember it though.
tortoise

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Synesthesia - I like the idea of seeing numbers and music as colours.

metal mickey

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I don't but I know of a young man who did.