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Hapankaali t1_j9ckxh9 wrote

The problem with your question is that there is no unambiguous way to define a "number of colours." Not only is there a visible spectrum with infinitely many distinct wavelengths, each in principle corresponding to a different colour, those wavelengths can be combined in infinitely many ways to form composite colours.

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wynntari t1_j9crmu0 wrote

I think it would be reasonable to group colours by the categories a language uses to group them.

English, for example, has categories like "red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, grey, black"

Colours would fall into one of these categories and two different colours that fall into the same category would be considered "the same colour" for the purpose of this discussion.

There will always be colours in-between categories that are hard to categorize.

What wavelengths can bioluminescence produce?
And which combinations of wavelengths can be produced together by biological processes?

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Hapankaali t1_j9e8hpm wrote

Those categories are not unambiguous either.

Bioluminescence produces light at all wavelengths of the visible spectrum.

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indiealexh t1_j9dbu1v wrote

Why not just list the wave length ranges if they are known?

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