Color

Some people are unable to see some colors. This is due to an inherited condition known as color blindness. John Dalton (1766-1844), a British chemist and physicist, was the first to discover color blindness in 1794. He was color blind and could not distinguish red from green. Many color blind people do not realize that they do not distinguish colors accurately. This is potentially dangerous, particularly if they cannot distinguish between the colors of traffic lights or other safety signals. Those people who perceive red as green and green as red are known as red-green color blind. Others are completely color blind; they only see black, gray, and white. It is estimated that 7% of men and 1% of women on Earth are born color blind.