chris fenwick @lexipenia

**voyager** @voyager@gram.social · 1h

**பாRTHIபN** @parthipan@pixelfed.de · 1h

**Chris Beckman** @photonongrata@pixelfed.social · 3h

**Dusk To Don** @dusk@todon.eu · 4h

Ooh, interesting! Purple isn't real!?

I feel like I've internally questioned that before, and this article makes it [more] clear:

> “Blue and red should be on opposite ends of that linear scale,” Johnson explains. “Yet at some point, blue and red start to come together. And that coming-together point is called purple.”

https://www.snexplores.org/article/color-purple-exists-only-in-brain

Found on #HackerNews
Where one commenter disagrees:

I love the headline, but unfortunately both the headline and the explanation are wrong.
Better explanation:

The red, green and blue receptors in the eyes all respond to all wavelengths of light, they're just more sensitive at red, green and blue respectively.

When violet hits those receptors, it doesn't hit any of the receptors at their peak sensitivity point. All three receptors fire. However, the green receptor has much better sensitivity than the red receptor, so violet triggers the strongest response in blue and red. If the red receptor was more sensitive, we'd probably interpret violet as a shade of blueish-brown rather than of purple.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43583283