When someone says “as white as snow,” it’s easy to envision what they’re talking about. We often think of snow as a dazzling ...

Snow looks white in the way salt, sugar, or crushed ice looks white. Obvious at first glance. Almost boring. But if you stop ...

Fresh snow can look like a blank sheet of paper, so bright it almost hurts to stare at in midday sun. Yet at the microscopic level, those flakes are not white at all, and the color we think we see is ...