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.
You would describe the color of a tennis ball as:
— CGP Grey (@cgpgrey) February 8, 2018
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.”
