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

Color is how your brain interprets light wavelength. The brain, it turns out, is not an organ of logic or reason; it is an organ of survival, full of quirks and inconsistencies.

If you want to go down the rabbit hole of color theory, a nifty place to start is the concept of impossible colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color