Brian Fink, age 11, of Spokane, Washington, for his question:

What is the most common color in the world?

If you are cheerful by nature, you know that gray clouds come and go with the changeable weather    but the usual color of the sky is blue. And the dome of the sky is somewhat larger than the earthly scenery in all directions. True, it changes to velvety black after sunset and sometimes the weather is so stormy that you may not glimpse its blueness for days. But taken generally through the year, a major portion of the scenery we behold from our world is colored blue by the sky. Add to this blue expanse the blue of the vast oceans that cover far more than half of our world. No doubt about it, the most common color in our scenery is blue    the blues of the heavens and the blues of the seas.

The second most common color depends upon where we stand and often upon the time of the year. The colors of the earthy ground range from pale tans through rusty browns to almost black, but large land areas are hidden below plants of assorted greens. The colors of animals and the vivid colors of flowers are mere specks in the vast expanses of blues, browns and greens.