Pink (red + white), brown (orange + black) and navy (blue + black) are also non spectral colors.

Some colors are “non-spectral” meaning they don’t fall on the spectrum. For purple, our brain is trying to make sense of two different wavelengths on opposite ends of the spectrum, blue and red. So our brain takes the color spectrum and turns it into a color wheel where blue and red are close.

Light exists on a spectrum from red to violet. Any particular spectral color is our eye’s cones detecting its specific wavelength.

Our eye has three types of cones, red, green and blue. The red detect long wavelengths, the green cones detect mid wavelengths and the blue cones the short wavelengths.

Also, I needed this for my memory, I can never remember which is which:

Oh wow to crazy! Thank you for the person experience. It’s so neat when science matches your own experiences. :)

/r/MapsWithoutNZ