Podcast: There's a new shade of blue in town, and here's how it was discovered

Adding a little colour to the world is always a good thing, and that's exactly what a professor and his student at an American university have done. There's a new shade in town, and it's called YInMn Blue.

The pigment was discovered in Oregon in the US and is the first new blue to be discovered in more 200 years. Blue occurs rarely in nature and is the most difficult colour to make.

The story of its creation is just as interesting as the colour itself.

Professor Mas Subramanian at the Oregon State University gave a student an assignment – one that had nothing to do with colours – as part of which the student mixed Yttrium oxide, which was white, Indium oxide (yellow) and the black Manganese oxide at a certain temperature. The resultant compound was a vivid, electric blue. It was an outcome neither student nor teacher had imagined.

This episode of The Intersection talks about the science of creating and perceiving colours, the accidental discovery of YInMn Blue and the infinitely vibrant possibilities that this opens up.

This is the latest episode of The Intersection, a fortnightly podcast on Audiomatic. For more such podcasts, visit audiomatic.in.