Braingle: 'Where's the Banana?' Brain Teaser

Where's the Banana?

Science brain teasers require understanding of the physical or biological world and the laws that govern it.

Puzzle ID:	#28032
Fun:	(2.66)
Difficulty:	(1.65)
Category:	Science
Submitted By:	Question_Mark
Corrected By:	zigthepig

Skid Mark felt like doing a hard challenge one day. Question Mark was very happy to give him a challenge. He took a banana, a sheet of white paper, a red ball, and a few random things and put them all in a room where only red light could be seen. He found the ball and the paper no problem. Why couldn't he find the banana as easily?

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Comments

doghouse270 Jan 11, 2006	this was perrty cool. i didn;t know about the banana with the red light though. good teaser
Brainy_1 Jan 11, 2006	Good teaser and informative! Nice job!!
signmeup74 Jan 12, 2006	I'm more than happy to lose a banana. Could I find some red chocolate instead?
(user deleted) Jan 12, 2006	This is the first teaser On this site I have read Though I am not sure If the room light was red
pippingurl_92 Jan 12, 2006	NICE ONE! I Actually got it right!
Warrior_Poet Jan 12, 2006	Good teaser, though I thought it was backwards of actual events. If it was a lit room with red light, and only a certain frequency of red light could be seen, then the black banana would stand out, while the red paper and red ball would be virtually impossible to locate without ... slipping over the banana peel onto them.
puttaholic Jan 12, 2006	Good teaser, i didnt get it though , little too smart for me Good Job
davelink Jan 15, 2006	banas reflect yellow light, which is a mixture of red and green light, so it would still be visible
anne Jan 16, 2006	red, green! d finder was blind.
SPUTNIK2 Jan 17, 2006	WoW! Ya learn something new everyday! GREAT teaser thanks to the sender ;)
Warrior_Poet Jan 19, 2006	The creator of this riddle obviously had only a low level knowledge of optics. If "only red light can be seen" things appear red or black. The banana would reflect a significantly darker image than the other objects, but I stand corrected in that it would indeed not be black. Either way, I contend that it would be the easiest of the three objects to see.
(user deleted) Mar 16, 2006	I knew it had something to do with how we see colors. . .
Vudluxi May 31, 2006	It all depends on the background to provide a contrast for the items to show clearly, but we don't know the colour of the walls and floor. If white/red, the banana would show up, if blue/green/yellow etc the paper and ball would show up clearer. (I would have thought).
OldChinaHand Jun 02, 2006	Mr. Highlevel, Mr. Background and others missed the bus on this one. In Skid Mark's universe bananas are yellow, not black. So to him just change the color it's gone. It's called a teaser...and it was a good one.
Vudluxi Jun 02, 2006	Yes, bananas are yellow, and not just in Mark's universe. But they don't look yellow in red light. They absorb red frequencies of light, so appear to be black. That was the point of the teaser. The background surely has to camouflage it though to make it difficult to see.
tangled_brain May 11, 2008	Great teaser, complaints notwithstanding. A quick Google search yields: YES, yellow light is a mix of red and green light spectrums--more red than green, by the way. SO: the YELLOW banana peel would REFLECT the red light, making it visibly red, just like the ball and paper. Whether the banana peel seems darker depends on if only one or multiple (visible) frequencies are present, and the frequency(ies) of the available light. If it IS darker, it depends on the contrast of the surface the items are laying on. Most LIKELY, there will not be a discernable difference, and ALL OBJECTS would be JUST AS easy or hard to find.