Math: Red or Blue?

Catherine McClees, Copy Editor|April 14, 2023

Colored pencils, a school staple. (Getty Images)

I remember one day in eighth grade our science class ceased discussing the periodic table and got into a heated debate over… what color history was. While our teacher didn’t quite understand at first, she later asked what color science was.

“I like pink. Can science be pink?”

A unanimous “No!” met her.

A few days ago in my physics class, the same event happened. There was a small debate over what color science was; while I had always held the belief that science is 100% most definitely green, one person said it was blue and another said purple.

Whenever conversations like this start, they easily become very heated, but why do we associate colors with subjects in the first place?

The answer is probably due to the fact it is something we learned as a child. Kindergarten teachers often assign different colors to different subjects in order to keep young children organized. This would explain why people have differing opinions on the color of the same subject.

We asked students what they each thought a subject’s color was. Can you guess which pie chart matches which subject? Scroll down to find the answers.