[ackfoobar]

Your comment would probably be less confusing for non-physicists if you said frequency instead of energy (I know, E=hf).

Two meanings of the word spectrum are used in this discussion, definition quoted from wiktionary:

1. "A range; a continuous, infinite, one-dimensional set, possibly bounded by extremes." "Specifically, a range of colours representing light (electromagnetic radiation) of contiguous frequencies"

2. A plot of energy against frequency, e.g. "[t]he pattern of absorption or emission of radiation produced by a substance", or the output of a Fourier transform.

You were talking about the former, BoiledCabbage the latter.

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I agree with you that the former makes a terrible analogy of autism; and to be honest I really don't see how the latter can be an analogy of autism.