Purple is a color invented by our brain. But will you want to say that it does not exist? Not necessarily… deep down, “no color really exists.”
The world is full of purple – Flowers, precious stones of amethyst, plums, eggplants and butterflies… All very (subjectively) beautiful.
But if we look in detail for the visible light part of the electromagnetic spectrum, we notice that this color (which is different from the bluish tones of violet and indigo) is absent.
According to a neurologist heard by, this is because purple is invented by our brain. I.e, exists only due to the way the brain processes the color.
Does this mean that purple does not exist? Not necessarily …
The answer lies as amazingly how our brain perceives and combines different wavelengths in the visible light spectrum.
“I would say that no color really exists”states Siteexecutive director and senior member of Wharton Neuroscience Initiative of the University of Pennsylvania.
“It’s all the process of our neural machinery, and this is, at the same time, the beauty and complexity of all this,” he added.
All colors start with the light. When sun radiation hits the earth, there are a number of wavelengths. There are long wavelengths, such as infrared rays and radio waves, and shorter, high -energy wavelengths, such as x -rays and ultraviolet rays.
In the middle of the electromagnetic spectrum is the visible light – The light our brain can see – which represents only about 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is what we perceive how the rainbow colors.
At one end of the spectrum are the longer wavelengths, which we perceive as red, and in the other are the shorter wavelengths, which we perceive as Indigo and Violet (but not purple).
The human visible spectrum
How do colors deceive us?
Our color perception involves specialized receivers in the back of our ocular globes, called cones, which detect visible light.
Human eyes have three types of cones: long wave, middle wave and short wave. Each is sensitive to specific wavelengths.
Long wavelength cones receive information about reddish light, medium wave length cones are specialized in green, and short wavelength cones detect blue.
When light reaches our eyeballs, these three receivers receive information about light and their wavelengths and send electrical signals to the brain. Then the brain then takes this information and makes a Average deduction of what is seeing.
If the long wavelength cones and medium wavelength are activated, the brain deduces that we are seeing orange or yellow.
In turn, if the medium wavelength cones and short wavelength are activated, the brain will conclude that it is blue-petroleum.
What about purple?
As experts explain to live science, when the short (blue) and long wavelength (red) length (red) cones are stimulated, the brain “Creates something that, in fact, does not exist in the world”disse Johnson.
Red and blue are in Opposite extremes of the visible spectrum: When the brain finds these wavelengths, it ends up doubled this linear visible spectrum in a circle. In other words, add the red and blue to form the purple and magenta, although not what light is really doing.
As a result, the Purple and the Magenta They are known as colors non-socialwhy There are not really as electromagnetic radiation.
What distinguishes non-sortial colors?
Non-contextral colors, such as purple, are composed of two light wavelengths. In contrast, spectral colors – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and, most importantly, violet and indigo – are made of only one wavelength.
In the background, They are a scam.
