why is Violet apart of the light spectrum when it looks identical to purple, but purple isn’t considered part of the spectrum?

Question

I never knew the difference between purple and violet, all I know is that purple, pink, magenta,etc are the “colours” we see when our red and blue cones are activated at once. But Violet is considered a part of the light spectrum? They look the same to me.

In: Physics

Answer 1

It’s a quirk of your eyes’ color sensing cells. You have cells in your eyes that are sensitive to red, green and blue light. However your red sensitive cells are also a bit sensitive to light frequencies between blue and ultraviolet.

So when your eyes see those light frequencies the blue sensitive cells correctly activate but your red sensitive cells “wrongly” activate as well, making it look like red+blue (purple).