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

Purple isn’t on the electromagnetic spectrum, you’re thinking of violet. Purple is what we see when long and short wavelength light (i.e., red and blue light) hits our eyes at the same time. This stimulates our retinas in a way that no single wavelength does, so our brains produce a new color, called magenta. And purple is just a bluer hue of magenta, which makes it appear similar to violet, even though there is no violet light involved.