What are Pixels?

We have all come across the term 'pixel' in our everyday life. But do we really know what it is?

Pixels are all around us- in our computers, laptops, tablets. They are the very reason you are able to read this blog! 

The word pixel has been derived from the words 'picture element'. Going by the formal definition- 'a pixel is the smallest programmable/controllable element of a picture represented on a screen'. In layman's terms it is the smallest part of anything that you are viewing on your screens.Typically the colours you see on your screens have been formed by 3 primary colours- red, blue and green as shown in the picture-

But don't judge a book by its cover - these 3 primary colours combine in different proportions to give 16,777,216 different colour variations!!

Now we know that pixels are the smallest controllable elements. But how small they really are?

The answer is very interesting- pixels should be thought as a logical unit rather than a physical one. To explain this more clearly, I would like to introduce a new term- Resolution! (and no it has nothing to do with your new year's  resolutions)

Resolution is the number of pixels contained on a display monitor. The sharpness of the image on a display depends on the resolution and the size of the monitor. The same pixel resolution will be sharper on a smaller monitor and gradually lose sharpness on larger monitors because the same number of pixels are being spread out over a larger number of inches.So now you know why an image becomes blurred when you magnify it! The physical size of a pixel depends on how you've set the resolution for the display screen. If you've set the display to its maximum resolution, the physical size of a pixel will equal the physical size of a dot  of the display. If, however, you've set the resolution to something less than the maximum resolution, a pixel will be larger than the physical size of the screen's dot (that is, a pixel will use more than one dot).