eli5: how do colors work?

Question

eli5: how do colors work?

In: Other

Answer 1

So basically light is a wave, and light waves occur at different frequencies just like sound waves. High frequency light is high energy and dangerous, like gamma or UV radiation. Low frequency energy waves can be huge and are generally harmless, like radio waves.

Somewhere in the middle, you have the tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes evolved to see. The different frequencies within that spectrum are what we see as different colors.

You have different receptors in your eyes that fire when they come into contact with different frequencies of that light, which is how you’re able to tell them apart.