It’s best not to trust your eyes completely. They are easily deceived, particularly by the greatest swindler of all the colors—white.

A completely unremarkable hen’s egg, fresh from the fridge, beige-orange in color. Holding onto one end, I submerge the other in the smoky flame of a candle. The cold shell quickly cools the billowing orange flame, which emits a stream of soot. The surface of the egg is now covered with a thick, furry layer of charcoal. Beneath this layer, the egg disappears—because soot is the antithesis of light, almost perfect black. It is the only color humans can perceive that is actually the absence of color, the absence of light—essentially, nothing. I wait a moment for the egg to cool, then dip it into a glass of water. Magic! The pitch black disappears, the sooty tip of the egg now coated in a silvery, almost luminous white. A sudden transformation: from no light at all to total radiance. I remove the egg from the water and the tip is a blur of darkness again. The light seems to shun it. I dip it in the water—white again, not a trace of the murky void. The universe is teasing me.

Not that I would object to a temporarily cheeky, joke-loving universe—it might even be fun. But on this occasion, the explanation is more prosaic. In principle, there is nothing unusual happening here, no mysterious alchemy interfering with the eternal laws of physics. When it comes to color, one must be prepared