Muave in spectrum?

[argus.]

A spectrum color is a color generated from the spreading of white
light into a continuum of wavelengths from shortest wavelngth
to longest.  

magenta does not have a single wavelngth.  thus it is not
in the spectrum.  in fact, if you get right down to it, its not
even really a "color" in my opinion, more of an optical illusion.
the java applets we were pointed to earlier were great at
showing how magenta happens.

in the same way that a reflecting ultraviolet wavelength shows
birds one color while we see another, our red receptors see
one color while our blue ones see another.  in the incredibly
complex compression algorythm between our eyes and our brain,
that collection of inputs is interpreted as "mauve" or "magenta."

sleepy and thinking of sandstorms,
susanargus

> Josh asks:
> >That is to say it's not a spectrum color, right?  
> 
> No. It is a spectrum color. Every color the eye can detect is in the solar
> spectrum. Every last one.(except those few frequencies that are absorbed by
> components of the atmosphere) The saturations may vary but every hue is
> there. I think this whole "new color" thing is a red herring. There are
> minerals with crystals of a decidedly mauve appearance. Mauve may have been
> the first dye color unrepresented amongst organic lifeforms but that's
> about as far as I'm willing to go.
> 
> >In other words (which I
> >picked up at http://www.whatis.com/cmyk.htm ), nothing "radiates" magenta,
> >but magenta is a pigment, and magenta things reflect just red and blue
> >light ("mainly").  
> 
> The sun radiates magenta along with every other color. So do certain
> mixtures of ionized gasses here on earth.
> 
> That is cool.  But I'm not sure that I understand the
> >"doesn't work to take an average" part.  Does this mean, rather, that we
> >can infer that our eyes don't work out an average between the red and blue
> >wavelengths, because if they did, we'd see green, but we don't (we see
> >magenta)?
> 
> Red, blue and green are additive color primaries. A mauve colored light
> stimulates the red and blue receptors but not the green. The brain
> interprets this as magenta, mauve, whatever you want to call it. It has
> nothing to do with averaging, adding, subtracting, etc. The brain is wired
> to provide a cognitive value for every possible combination of relative
> levels of excitation coming from these three flavors of cone cells. It's
> very much like a color TV camera in that respect.
> 
>   (Looks like a good argument to me.  But I don't know this stuff;
> >I'm really asking.)
> >
> 
>