Human eyes recognize colours by their wavelengths. Therefore, the speed at which the wavelength of every colour reaches our eyes is different which lets our brain analyze and interpret the colour we are seeing. But do all the popular colours really exist? Read on to know more.
Silver
Silver is actually a metallic hue but the shine is not due to the colour but the result of light bouncing off the surface. In reality, silver is just pale gray. We can’t recreate silver colour without manipulating light or mixing fine shiny powder around gray. So, in reality, it is more of a gray!
Off White
Technically Off white is not a color but a category of colors that are so bright that they seem to like white. To get off the white colour, we blend white (shade) with small measures of brilliant colors like yellow and brown. The result is actually a very bright yellow but we popularly know it as Off White.
Black and white
When we see a blue car, wesee it as blue because the paint on the car absorbs the wavelengths of other colours and only reflects blue. But in case the object absorbs all the colours and reflects nothing, we see the object as black. On the other hand, a mix of every light and colour gives us colour white. The black and white we usually see are not purely black and white. In reality, the ‘whitest’ white absorbs some colors, while the ‘blackest’ black does reflect some light!
Brown
Brown colour has a wavelength of around 600 nanometers, which places it in between red and yellow colours. In reality, orange’s wavelength lies between 585 and 620 nanometers, which makes brown one of several shades of orange.
Pink
To many people’s disappointment, pink does not have its own wavelength, but our eyes can see it as it emits the wavelength of the color red. In terms of creating colours, we can add white to blue to get light blue and white to green to get light green; similarly,we can mix white to red to get light red, or pink as popularly known as!
Magenta
Magenta does not have a wavelength, which means it should technically not exist! Magenta is somewhere between red and violet and our brain gets confused to identify this shade. As a result, the brain ends up inventing a new colour which we see as magenta.
Surely you would be surprised to understand this trickery which lets us experience these popular colours that really don’t independently exist.
