Strontium: Red
Barium: Green
Copper: Blue
Sodium: Yellow

These compounds, powdered and suspended individually in tanks ethanol or another flammable liquid are launched in continuous streams of concentric arcs high into the air to fall back and be extinguished in a carbon dioxide filled storage chamber. When ignited, all the colors of the rainbow will be displayed as the rising heat of each stream causes the primary colors to blend into the stream directly above.

The pot of gold may be slightly melted when found.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 16 2005

cool! have a carefully extended and probably now toasted croissant.
-- ato_de, Jul 16 2005


it'll all end in tears...
-- po, Jul 16 2005


To point out the obvious, green isn't a primary colour.
-- hidden truths, Jul 16 2005


but it's rather lovely...olive is my favourite shade...

hidden - go work for food. there's a love.
-- po, Jul 16 2005


Well, 3 primary colors are really just a concept used in color blending to reflect the fact that humans only have three kinds of color receptors in their eyes anyway. It's perfectly possible to have, say, a pure orange that is not a mix of other colors--but it will be picked up by more than one receptor in the eye.

I could just as validly say that Yellow is not a primary color--when mixing light instead of pigment, the primaries are Red/Green/Blue. In fact this interpretation is probably "more correct" anyway because Red and Blue aren't even primary colors of pigment--you want Cyan/Magenta/Yellow (and in this case you are seeing light emitted by the burning metals instead of light reflected from a surface, so pigments shouldn't apply anyway)

Red/Blue/Yellow is a popular myth perpetuated by preschool teachers who don't want to try and explain the difference between Cyan and Blue or Magenta and Red/Purple (not that I blame them)

As a fun color expiriment, sparked by another comment, try mixing yellow and black paint (or, on a computer, make a yellow image and then reduce the brightness). You end up with olive green.
-- 5th Earth, Jul 16 2005


Either that or the Bat signal.
-- Cuit_au_Four, Jul 17 2005


//Red/Blue/Yellow is a popular myth perpetuated by preschool teachers// - Thank god you told me that, I've spent a long time trying to work out why some colours are more primary than others. I still can't see why we always use three colours to make the full range when all colours lie along a spectrum bounded by just red and blue.
-- wagster, Jul 17 2005



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