How come red & purple are on opposite, far ends of the electromagnetic spectrum, but when mixing colors together in kindergarten, purple is halfway between red & blue?

Question

Shouldn’t common sense dictate that either both be one, or both be the other?

In: 1934

Answer 1

Paint does not give off light. It absorbs some of the light and the rest is reflected back. Interestingly, then, a strawberry ISN’T red. It’s every other colour EXCEPT red. It absorbs all the light except red, which bounces off, so that’s the colour we see. But it gives off no colour at all of its own. It only reflects some of the light that hits it.

So, when light hits purple paint (or anything else purple for that matter) the “stuff” in the paint absorbs all the light wavelengths of all the colours except the colours that make purple. It doesn’t matter where those colours are in terms of wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum. They’re just the ones that bounce off and into your eyes.