Yellow is the color of light whose wavelength is between 565 nanometre and 590 nm. The human eye also perceives some mixtures of differently-coloured lights, such as red added to green, to be the same color.
Yellow is one of the subtractive primary color, and its complementary color is blue. However, because of the characteristics of paint pigments used in the past, painters traditionally regard its complement as purple.
==Usage, symbolism, colloquial expressions==
*Yellow is a bright cheerful color, but in the English language, yellow has traditionally been associated with jaundice and cowardice. In American slang, a coward is said to have a "yellow belly." It can also mean that something is tainted, as in the expression "yellow journalism."
*Yellow or gold symbolized wealth, ability, or knowledge in English heraldry.
*Songs relating to yellow include:
**"Yellow (single)" by Coldplay, from the album ''Parachutes''
**"Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles, from the album ''Revolver (album)'' (also the title of a film and album)
**"Mellow Yellow" by Donovan, from the album of the same name
**"Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" by Frank Zappa, from the album ''Apostrophe (album)''
**"Truck Drivin' Neighbours Downstairs (Yellow Sweat)" by Beck, from the album ''Mellow Gold''
*Yellow was the symbol for the Emperor of China and of the Chinese monarchy. It was also the color of the New Party (Taiwan) in the Republic of China.
*Pencils are painted yellow because of this association with China, where the best graphite is found. Only pencils with Chinese graphite used to be painted yellow.
*Yellow also symbolises royalty in many other cultures, like much of South East Asia. In China, commoners were not allowed to wear yellow until modern times.
*In the United States in the 20th century, immigrants from China and other East Asian nations were derogatively referred to as a "Yellow peril," which probably referred to skin color.
*Yellow, in international political organizations, is the color for Liberal International.
[[Image:Sunflowers.jpg|thumb|right|375px|Yellow sunflowers in Fargo, North Dakota.]]
*In some countries, taxicabs are commonly yellow. This practice apparently began in New York City, where taxi owner Harry N. Allen painted his taxis yellow after learning that yellow is the color most easily seen at a distance. See List of taxi cab colours.
*In Canada and the United States, school buses are almost uniformly painted a yellow color (often referred to as "school bus yellow") for purposes of visibility and safety, and Britainbus operators such as FirstGroup are attempting to introduce the concept there. "Caterpillar Inc. yellow" and "high-visibility yellow" are used for highway construction equipment.
*In auto racing, a yellow flag signals caution. Cars are not allowed to pass one another under a yellow flag.
*In road bicycle racing, the yellow jersey - or ''maillot jaune'' - is awarded to the leader in a stage race. The tradition was begun in the Tour de France where the sponsoring ''L'Auto'' newspaper (later ''L'Équipe'') was printed on distinctive yellow newsprint.
* In railway signaling, yellow is often the colour for warning, slow down, such as with distant signals.
*The ''Yellow Pages'' is the section of a phone book or online phone directory that lists business numbers by category. They are named for the color paper they are printed on in phone books to distinguish them from the regular listings.
*Yellowcake (also known as urania and uranic oxide) is concentrated uranium oxide, obtained through the milling of uranium ore. Yellowcake is used in the preparation of fuel for nuclear reactors and in uranium enrichment, one of the essential steps for creating nuclear weapons.
*The Yellow Rose of Texas, or "Harison's Yellow," first bloomed in New York City in the 1830s.
*Yellow is the color of the snookerball which has a two-point value.
*Yellow could be the color of an old jeep.
*When yellow is mixed with green, it creates Lime (color)
* In China, a "yellow movie" is pornography; contrast "blue movie".
*There is a yellow smile, in Arab culture, which is an ingenuine smile. A yellow smile is used when a person is concealing lack of interest, fear, or any emotion he wishes to keep hidden. It is sometimes used as a joke, by making a face of a crooked, ingenuine smile, when somebody tells a bad joke or is trying to make others laugh for something they do not find humorous enough.
== See also ==
*List of colorsColorsOptical spectrumsimple:Yellowvi:Vàng (màu)
Yellow
==Symbolism==
I know blue is symbol of liberalists, but yellow? User:Pastinakel 14:27, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
==Mixture==
According to the article
''Yellow is the color of light whose wavelength is between 565 nm and 590 nm, or is a mixture of red and green light that appears to be the same color.''
Red plus green is not the only mixture of light that will give you yellow. Orange plus lime should give you yellow too (a more vivid one at that). In fact there are an infinite number of possible spectral intensity distributions that'll give you yellow. It is true, of course that computers, TVs, etc. use red plus green to make yellow and this would be worth mentioning. The sentence needs rewording. - User:Jimp 1Jun05
==Yellow reflectance==
I removed the spectral reflectance of yellow pic for a few reasons. Firstly, what information does this plot really give the reader? Why is the Y axis not labelled? Why would something which appears yellow also reflect equally well in green and red portions of the spectrum (and some in the purple region, its complementary color!) this can't be "pure" yellow. This is just more confusion the reader doesn't need to deal with. --User:Deglr6328 09:33, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Yellow vs. Reddish-Green ==
Can anyone put into detail the answer to this question:
Why, even though yellow is not percieved by the human eye as a mixture of reddish green, does it have the behavior in RGB color theory as if it were such a color?? In the sequence R-O-Y-G-C-B-V, only R, Y, G, and B are percieved by the eye as primary colors. O is percieved as R+Y, C as G+B, and V as B+R. No color is percieved by the human eye as R+G or Y+B. Yet, in RGB color theory, R+G=Y. User:Georgia guy 23:11, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
*Red and green is most certainly perceived by the human eye as yellow. You are mixing addition of colors with the multiplication of colors. While most people are used to adding pigments to eachother in art class (pigments absorb light and so mixing is multiplicative) they are not used to combining light sources (like light or with monitor displays).
The true "sequence" is RYGCBV, orange is a shade of red that is popular in european cultures. Many languages and people do not think of as anything more than a shade of yellowish red. User:AsteronUser_talk:Asteron 20:23, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)
Well, what are the multiplicative primary colors?? The additive are red/green/blue and the subtractive are cyan/magenta/yellow. User:Georgia guy 21:02, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Old Jeep? ==
:''Yellow could be the color of an old jeep.''
Is there a significance that old jeeps can be yellow (as oppossed to, say, a Beetles )? If so, I think it should be explained in the sentence.