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As per wikipedia, "brown" refers to long wavelength hues, yellow, orange, or red, in combination with low luminance or saturation.

So what about the short wavelength hues? Is there any reason why they are not called differently when desaturated?

Specifically, is there any physical reason? That is, is brown in some way qualitatively different from orange in some way, more so than desaturated blue from regular blue?

user666
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No, there isn't.

This is exclusively on the side of the perceptual, psychophysics side of colour perception. Colour is based on the spectral properties of light, but it is a complex quale that arises from a complicated combination of the biophysical response in the retina and the neural processing that takes the signals from the retina and transforms them into concepts that the brain-at-large can operate on. In particular, the naming of colours and the assignation of boundaries between them falls on the latter side of the equation, and this includes the bizarre fact that orange becomes a different colour when perceived as 'dim' (though note that this is context-dependent!) but cyan and yellow don't.

If you're interested in the subject, I'd recommend the Technology Connections video Brown; color is weird.

Emilio Pisanty
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  • Thanks for the answer! Is there at least a psychophysical explanation why it isn't the same with blue? I thought perhaps because desaturation "cools" the color, thus changing the character of the "warm" colors only. Makes sense? – user666 Jul 06 '20 at 18:24
  • Agree, it's even more complicated than that, as whether the fact that two colours are considered separate, or shades of the same colour is culture-dependent (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language) – fqq Jul 06 '20 at 18:26
  • @user666 You'll have to ask the psychophysicists about that one. – Emilio Pisanty Jul 06 '20 at 19:17
  • @Emilio Pisanty Is there a SE site where I can ask them? – user666 Jul 06 '20 at 19:24
  • @user666: [psychology.se] would probably be the best place. As hinted at by FQQ, the answer probably boils down to that there is a separate word for brown in English (and many other European languages). – Wrzlprmft Jul 07 '20 at 07:02
  • @user666 If you watch the video Emilio suggested you would understand that the concept of Brown is merely philosophical. Its nature evolves from language and society. Not only that, but brown is purely a relative color, that only exists in relation to context. If you decide to do the same with a desaturated blue and start calling it whatever you'd like, then you might start a trend. Color perception/differentiation comes mainly from language and culture, not physical meaning. There is a powerful philosophical experiment where a researcher sees the whole world in black and white, however 1/2 – José Andrade Jul 07 '20 at 17:15
  • This researcher is the world leading expert in the color Red. Knows it goes from 625–740 nm, the corresponding photon energies, etc. but will never know how it really looks like. You cannot just describe what it looks like. There are many documentaries around about color perception, and they are all worth it, if you are intrigued by this. How historically naming starts from just two colors or shades of color to the complex array we have today. You will find how different societies have further names for colors you simply say "both are blue" etc. – José Andrade Jul 07 '20 at 17:20