So if red wavelengths of light are the longest wavelengths of light, and blue/violet are the shortest (meaning they are on the opposite sides of the visible spectrum we can see), why does red flow into purple and into blue so nicely on the color wheel with no gap. Are all wavelengths (radio/ microwave/ infrared/ ultraviolet/ x-ray/ gamma ray) just some in-between purple color we can’t see?
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Our eyes and brains don’t know anything about wavelengths of light. Instead our eyes just have three different kinds of light-sensitive cells which have different, overlapping ranges of sensitivity.
If we see light of a certain wavelength it will stimulate those light sensing cells a different amount. By comparing the relative stimulation of the three different kinds of cells the sensation of color is produced.
Our eyes usually encounter mixes of various wavelengths of light all at once though, but it doesn’t matter. The sum of the stimulus in the three kinds of cells is processed just the same, which is how screens can produce the sensation of whatever color they want using mixes of just RGB.
What this also means is that our eyes and brains don’t know or care if a combination of stimulated cells can’t be produced by a single wavelength of light. This is where the blending of the color wheel around magenta comes from, it is a combination of blue and red light that our brain treats like any other combination of cell stimulus.
Because purple and magenta are not colors of light (at least, not of any single wavelength of light), they are color perceptions created by the way our brains interpret light. They are what we see when we see a combination of blue and red light at the same time in varying levels.
Because light and color are two separate things.
Light generally refers to the range of electromagnetic radiation that triggers the photo receptors in the back of your eye. Radio waves, microwaves, ultraviolet, these are all the same EMR but we categorize them onto a scale for their relevance to humans.
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/02/18/2817543.htm
Color is how your brain interprets those signals and it can get a bit messy. Color doesn’t exist outside of your brain and the color wheel (which is actually more a floppy triangle) reflects how humans perceive color, not the actual EMR values. Captain Disillusion has a great video on this.
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