why purple is on the end of the rainbow/color spectrum

Question

First of all, I don’t understand why indigo and violet are split… why not just call it purple? Ok, not my question.

Colors of the rainbow all make sense to me except purple.

Red – orange – yellow…makes sense that orange is between red and yellow, and it’s the combination of those two primary colors, nice transition

This follows with green, blue. Green is between yellow and blue.

Now… if purple aka indigo and violet are a combination of blue and red, how can it be on the opposite end of red (very different frequency) and outside the frequency range of blue? I would expect a secondary color’s frequency to be between the two primary colors that create it

In: 76

Answer 1

You are confusing the color theory of how paints mixed together with the color theory of how light works.

[Color is light vibrating at different frequencies. ](https://evokasydney.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/visible-spectrum.jpg)

All of the red that you see is hitting you like a bear hug that slowly becomes a person napping on your shoulders. Red has the lowest frequency and ironically produces the least amount of energy. This is why middle-aged stars are red. That plain old fire that you’re looking at in a fireplace is actually the weakest fire possible. Weak sauce fire. [Get you some of that blue fire. ](https://sciencenotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/The-Colors-of-Stars-From-Hottest-to-Coldest.png) That’s the hot stuff.

All of the violet you see is hitting you like a triple-slap in the face. Violet has the highest frequency and produces the highest amount of energy that we are still able to see with our eyes.

Paint and pigment, both found in nature and artificial, has convinced you that there is such a thing as magenta and purple exist. [Magenta and purple are not real. ](https://www.kooslooijesteijn.net/generated/assets/blog/2017-04-14/red-magenta-purple-violet-800-571fffeef.png) Violet is the word we use to describe the actual color that we see from light. Purple and magenta are the 2nd Place prize our brain gives us when we see red and blue at the same time.

Don’t be sad, though, our brain also gets messed up if it sees too much orange or sees neon yellow and navy blue. [Here, stare at these pictures. ](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/1*8bIUN8MZ11NODRTyuB1IUg.jpeg)