🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ETHANB.92Nov9155340@ptolemy.astro.washington.edu>
ethanb@ptolemy.astro.washington.edu (Ethan Bradford) writes:
>The simple explaination of why yellow monochromatic light looks the
>same as equal combinations of green and red light is that the color
>receptor systems in the eye (the cones) have sensitivity curves which
>trail off (I remember them as being roughly gaussian).  A signal
>halfway between the two peaks excites the two receptors equally, as do
>two signals right on each peak.

This article piqued my old annoyance with the free use of the term "gaussian"
which is so common among us. In the case mentioned above it is the case that
none of the three visual response functions looks gaussian to me. I have even
heard Lorentzian curves described as gaussian by colleagues in an unthinking
moment.

I believe it is time that we had another term for curves which have humps. It
is appealing to call them "bactrian" curves, but confusion with the "dromedary"
curves which often characterize class grade distributions would ensue. People
would never be able to keep them straight!

In the spirit of comfortable zoomorphism which commends these to us, I would
like to suggest that we henceforth refer to all single-hump curves as "elkian".
In this suggestion I do not wish to imply that the elk has a hump. The term is,
rather, eponymous. It honors the famous theoretical paleoherpetologist Anne
Elk, who is best remembered for her work on the brontosaurus.

Instead of the "dromedary" I would suggest the "parton", and curves with even
more humping could be called "newlyweds".

Leigh