What happens at the “edges” of the visible light spectrum?

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We can “see” light between 380 and 700 nanometers, but what happens at the egde and just after that? I mean, when we approach the limit like 699-700-701-705…
Does it turn completely dark/invisible/something else immediately or is there some kind of gradual change?
Is it the same on both ends?

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6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine if you couldn’t see green at all. Not that it looked gray, or the wrong colour, but it just didn’t register at all. You had photoreceptors for red, and photoreceptors for blue, but just none for green.

A colour that’s 100% red and 0% green, would appear entirely red. to all of us. A colour that was 50% red and 50% green, would appear as red with 50% luminosity to you, but yellow to the rest of us.

A colour that was 0% red and 100% green just wouldn’t appear. like 0% luminosity. But obviously very green to the rest of us.

Below red, and above violet, are exactly the same concept. Colours that we don’t have photoreceptors tuned to.

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