This article is reprinted from the public account "Bring Science Home"
Written by | Quasimodo by the river
Proofreading | Ziv
In less than 100 days, the 32nd Summer Olympics will be held in Paris, France. The Olympics have a special feature: the stadium that hosts the track and field competition will have a purple track.
The track of a regular sports field is usually red or blue. This time, the Olympic Committee's unconventional approach, according to the explanation of the person in charge, is to create a more stark contrast with the spectator seating area and attract the attention of the audience in front of the audience and in front of the TV. At the same time, "the purple color of the runway is reminiscent of lavender from Provence".
Workers are laying the purple track inside the Stade de France (pictured
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Aurélien Morissard
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As a color, purple is not uncommon in nature, especially in the field of plants, such as lavender, violets, lilacs, hanging bamboo, bellflowers, ...... Or even ripe eggplants. But it was so difficult for humans to get purple pigments or dyes that few countries used purple as the color of their flags.
The picture shows the flags of African countries. Flags around the world are available in almost every color, even black and brown, but purple is hard to find
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pixabay.com/vecto
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The earliest use of purple pigments can be traced back to the Neolithic period. About 20,000 years ago, in Péchmel, France, and some of the surrounding caves, people at that time left the outlines of their own hands with manganese-containing minerals. However, in nature, there are very few types of ore that can form a stable purple color. Although anthocyanins in plants can also appear purple, these natural pigments can change color with changes in pH, making them unstable in practical applications and unable to be used as dyes for clothing fibers.
佩奇梅尔(Pech Merle )山洞中的壁画
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：
over-blog.com
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Around 1500 B.C., the Phoenicians on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean discovered that there was a type of shell creature bone snail in the local sea, and the mucus secreted by it could be extracted and processed to form a purple dye that was not easy to fade. The Phoenicians quickly mastered this technique and monopolized the trade in purple dye, and even the name of the people, "Phoenician", is associated with purple, which translates to "people of the purple country". The ancient Romans of the time were especially fond of this purple. It's just that some scholars have calculated that about 10,000 bone snails can produce about 1 gram of dye. Therefore, only the emperors and nobles of ancient Rome were qualified and able to enjoy purple, which also made purple a symbol of "nobility".
The different purples obtained from the three bone snails were fortunately produced as purple dyes at that time
The amount is not much, because the purple dye made by the bone snail will always emit a fishy smell
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Wikimedia Commons
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And on the other side of the continent, ancient China was also trying to "conquer" purple. On the terracotta warriors and horses of Qin Shi Huang, traces of purple were also found. But due to changes in the environment, soon these purple pigments disappeared. And what kind of substance this glimpse of purple is has become a mystery that has puzzled scholars for a long time. It wasn't until the nineties of the last century that scientists finally figured out the mystery of the color of the terracotta warriors. It turns out that the purple pigment on the figurine is a substance that does not exist in nature, copper barium silicate. This shows that as early as the Qin Dynasty, the mainland had mastered the technology of synthetic pigments, and this ancient pigment was also named China purple or Han purple.
Chinese purple on the terracotta warriors
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:Internet
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Over time, humans have gradually mastered more purple pigments, but it is still not easy to extract purple compared to other colors. In the early 19th century, Alexander von Humboldt, a famous German scientist and explorer, discovered a huge amount of struvite near Peru in South America, which is a resource formed by the long-term accumulation of seabird droppings. Soon the guano was being shipped to Europe, especially the UK. Not only did it serve as a fertilizer for agriculture, but it also produced ammonium pururate, the most important purple dye at the time.
Seabirds and guano off the coast of Peru flock here because the currents that pass through Peru bring a large number of fish. Over time, a thick layer of guano has formed
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：tomasmunita.com
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But soon the British were disappointed: although the ammonium purpureate stained clothes were very bright, the purple color faded too easily. It turned out that Britain was in the period of the Industrial Revolution at that time, and the air pollution was very serious, and the air contained a large number of sulfur-containing compounds. Once these substances come into contact with ammonium pururate, they will react and cause discoloration. In order to obtain a more stable purple color, many scientists at that time devoted themselves to research. However, as the saying goes, "unintentionally inserting willows into the willows", a failed experiment produced a new purple pigment.
Before modern times, purple was only enjoyed by a few people, both in the East and the West
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：Wikimedia Commons
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Malaria is a malignant disease transmitted to humans by mosquitoes, and it was known at the time that it could be treated with quinine. However, at that time, quinine could only be extracted from the bark of the natural cinchona tree, which was very expensive, so synthetic quinine was an important field of science at that time. In 1856, the British scientist William Perkin, in his humble laboratory, tried to synthesize quinine from coal tar, and he unsurprisingly failed. But while he was cleaning the flask with alcohol, he accidentally noticed a purple solution in the flask, and this solution dripped on his clothes and was difficult to clean.
By applying for patents and investing in the construction of factories, Perkin also quickly made a fortune by relying on aniline violet
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：sciencehistory.org
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This serendipitous discovery created the world's first synthetic dye, aniline violet. Not only was it cheap, but it didn't fade easily, so this purple quickly led the fashion and became all the rage in Europe. At this point, purple has broken away from the label of "expensive" and can really enter thousands of households and become a common choice in our choice of color matching. The story of human beings' pursuit of purple is also the process of our continuous exploration of the unknown. And the upcoming Paris Olympics, the debut of the purple runway, may once again lead the fashion, which is also a new story about the history of "purple".
The main components of the track are natural rubber, synthetic rubber, mineral compounds, pigments and additives, and more than half of it is recycled or renewable
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：eaglenews.ph
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So, what kind of legend will be born on this gorgeous runway? Let's wait and see!
Resources:
[1] Anne Varichon, Couleurs-pigments dans les mains des peuples, p. 144–146
[2] Seeing purple: Fans get a new track color and maybe record-breaking times at Paris Olympics https://www.kxan.com/sports-general/ap-seeing-purple-fans-get-a-new-track-color-and-maybe-record-breaking-times-at-paris-olympics/
[3] Seeing purple: Fans get a new track color and maybe record-breaking times at Paris Olympics. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/paris-2024-summer-olympics/seeing-purple-fans-get-a-new-track-color-and-maybe-record-breaking-times-at-paris-olympics/3387701/
[4]H00P P.O.P
[5] Xia Yin, Yan Sumei, Re-study of Purple Pigments of Qin Warriors Painting[C]//International Symposium on the 30th Anniversary of the Opening of the Qin Warriors Museum and Conference Papers of the 7th Annual Conference of Qin Warriors (for the conference).2009.
[6] Victoria Finley, translated by Yao Yunzhu. The Story of Color: The Natural History of the Color Palette. Beijing: Life, Reading, New Knowledge Joint Bookstore, 2008.09.
[7] Written by Gavin Evans; The story of color. Haikou:Hainan Publishing House, 2019.06.
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