Things I never knew - magenta doesn't exist

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

I don't think there's been a 'things I've only just found out' thread for a while, so here's one. According to Bored Panda magenta doesn't exist, it's a construct made by our brains when we see both blue and red (opposite ends of the spectrum) together, but it doesn't have a wavelength of its own.

Well that just makes me want a glass of red wine.

What? Magenta is a mad bright pink isn't it? Do I not see it right!!?

You don't really see it at all Squigean, apparently. The article is illustrated by liberal use of the non colour magenta. I see a bright, purple-tinged pink

Every day is a school day. I did not know that. I'm not sure my brain can handle knowing that.

I had a magenta bedroom a good few years ago, the paint can even said magenta. My childhood is a lie

Weirdly magenta is a colour that strobes very slightly on a computer screen for me, I wonder if that strobing is related to it not really existing.

I remember years ago there were photos doing the rounds of faces where the features had been photoshopped so that they were upside down. When you look at it your brain switched the features so that the photo looked normal.

Then if you covered parts and just looked at the mouth for example your brain saw it how it actually was, upside down.

There are also colours that we can’t actually see as we don’t have the correct rod(?) to see them but our brains ‘see’ them based on their wavelength and where it is on the spectrum compared to colours that we can see

How can it not be real if we see it???

(And does this mean all purple isn’t real too? That’s a mix of red and blue, yes?)

So, those rather fetching tights in my drawer aren’t real, then?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/sep/19/the-thatcher-illusion-are-faces-special

Here is an explanation of the faces.

Magenta DeVine def DID exist. The Clothes Show. V cool lady.

Rather smug nerd to explain it on YouTube.

Err......

Apparently so! Although we can 'see' magenta, it doesn't form part of the visible spectrum. In the CMYK color model, used in color printing, it is one of the three primary colors, along with cyan and yellow.

Magenta is stimulated in the brain when the eye reports input from short wave blue cone cells and longwave cones which respond secondarily to that same deep blue color, but with little or no input from the middle wave cones. The brain interprets that combination as some hue of magenta or purple, depending on the relative strengths of the cone responses.

So Magenta only exists in your mind and your printer!

Your tights are real Craftycorvid but they are not the colour that your brain (and indeed the brains of all the non-colourblind humans) thinks that they are.

You just think you're seeing it OldUnit.

It doesn't correspond to a wavelength of light, but I don't think it's true to say it 'doesn't exist'. It is accurately represented in the RGB colour system as 255,0,255 - a mix of fully intense red and blue light. You might as well say a gin and tonic doesn't exist.

The thing I find interesting about our colour perceptiion is that although visible light is a spectrum from red at one end to 'violet' at the other (with infra red and ultra violet beyond our range but perceptible to some other creatures) , we perceive it as a continuous wheel with purples and magenta between red and blue.

Well, it does and doesn't exist in the sense that we are seeing both red and blue light. The red and blue both exist and we are constructing a visual representation of the combination inside our brains.

Gin and tonic DEFINITELY EXISTS, I cannot emphasise that strongly enough. My brain is absolutely not creating that without my conscious awareness.

We construct the flavour of a G&T from far more constituent parts - many different aromas with different scent receptors but also sweet, sour and bitter tastes. Add to that the sensations of coldness and the whatever-it-is of alcohol - your brain puts all that together.

I am literally too stoopid to understand this thread

Some googling later I've got to 'impossible colours'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color

Which apart from anything else was worth finding for this:

"Reddish green" redirects here. Reddish Green is also a place in Reddish, Stockportt^, in Greater Manchester in England.

Wouldn't you love to live there, OP?

Years ago I had a friend who got a kitten and was discussing what to call it with her DCs. She suggested Magenta and her DS (aged about 7) was horrified and adamant you can't call a cat that. Took a fair bit of unraveling to find he was mixing up the words Magenta and vagina...

there is no frequency of light on the electromagnetic spectrum that corresponds to "brown" either but that exists as a colour.

@LaurieFairyCake

High fives 👋 I am with you sista!!!