: if colour is a spectrum going red thru purple then why do we have colours like magenta or pink, which seemingly connect purple back to red?
In: Physics
Your eye has three types of color-detecting cells. Each has a color they’re most sensitive to: one is red, one is green, and one is blue. But they aren’t sharp, specific colors that they’re sensitive to, there’s some overlap. Yellow light, for example, is seen by both the red and the green cells. Which means that you can trick your brain into seeing yellow by mixing red and green light, like in a computer display.
For violet, the blue receptor does most of the work, but oddly enough the *red* receptor can also see things in the extreme edge of visible. So when violet hits your eye, the blue receptor and the red receptor see it.
Magenta is a strong blue plus a strong red, when adding light. It’s not a spectral color, it’s the mixing of two colors.
There are a lot of different pinks, some can have some blue in them and some are more accurately described as a pale red, which would be white (all colors) with some extra red.
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