Why blue shift?

[Snoggums]

Why is blue shift not called violet shift? I never got the reason, I realize it's possible that there is no reason other then it's easier to say, but I would love a solid answer. Red and violet are at opposite ends of the visible light spectrum, it would make sense to call it violet shift instead of blue shift.

 

Now here's where you make me feel like an idiot because I'm worrying about such a trivial thing.

[iNow]

What an interesting question.

 

Why don't we call it gamma shift? Probably has something to do with blue being a more prominent color in the visual area of the electromagnetic question, but I'm really not sure.

 

Probably has everything to do with the first person who published a paper about the "increase in frequency" resulting from motion relative to an observer, and what they thought. I'm just not sure, though.

[swansont]

Blue is a primary color, and more manly.

 

Seriously, though, I think it's more from narrowing the choices to red-green-blue, rather than ROYGBIV.

[MrMongoose]

Also, blue is one syllable and physicists are lazy.

[Mr Skeptic]

Cause it came out of the blue.

[Dark matter]

Maybe because astronomers like to discriminate against purple. Or maybe, they don't think violet looks good on them.