There's no purple light
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- Even though you can see purple, there's no purple light. This also explains why we can use a colour wheel when the electromagnetic spectrum is linear.
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Twitter- / jesseagaryt
Images
Paul Longinidis Purple Flower (CC BY 2.0) flic.kr/p/qG6xJa
Music
Drum Solo Birdman by Michikawa
www.pond5.com/...
Sources
silversneakers...
So, my favorite color doesn't actually exist outside of my brain? Neat
It does exist outside your brain. It exists in my brain, which I know for a fact isn’t inside your brain.
@@felipevasconcelos6736 🤯
Whatever purple is ugly color anyways so happy 😁 hahahahnanababan
Purple has also changed throughout history as far as the hues included in that color range; nowadays, when people say “purple”, they usually mean violet or indigo. Purple, classically speaking, is akin to the color of congealed blood, or of porphyry stone. To the average person today, they’d think that’s maroon or burgundy.
@@felipevasconcelos6736 Assuming that we aren't all just part of CyberianFaux's brain. No way she can know for sure. ;)
By far the best explanation of purple/violett confusion I've ever come across! Thanks!
volkerswille I asked my bio teacher this back in high school, my question was never really answered until now lol
In my language purple and violet means the same, so I'm still confused.
Seedzification in this video, violet is considered to be bluer than purple
@@gonzalezm244 But it still doesn't explain why violet looks purplish
@@DANGJOS Your long wavelength (red) receptor has a small peak in the shortest visible wavelengths and your medium wavelength (green) receptor has a dip: techmind.org/colour/spectra.html
The animation for this episode was fantastic
Totally. So clearly shown.
The sound effects were lit
The sound design in these videos is SO GOOD
As a color blind guy, glad I'm not missing out on a REAL color. (cries in a lack of red)
Rainmaker519 red is in your profile picture, did you notice this
are you sure it's not a lack of green?
Fishotic yea it's protanism, red is there but it's weaker. I can see strong red but no purple really.
F
4head
Friend: can you pass me the purple crayon?
Me: there's no purple..
Friend: ITS RIGHT THERE!!
Me: there is no purple light..
Friend: die
Friend #2: He didn't ask you to pass the purple light...
@@42mateos what we see as we look to a crayon is the light coming from it
Yeah, he still asked for the purple crayon and that has meaning. Language is by consensus. Moreover, the concept of purple was explained in the video. It is a real color despite not having a single corresponding wavelength.
@@42mateos Right. Just as there is no brown (single-frequency) light. They are both "composites".
just pass me the blue and red please .. and gtfo
It takes a brilliant mind to explain things in a way that the subject appears easy. Congrats on your brilliance. And your animation rocks as well.
Food for thought: If you only had 1 type of color receptor, then you can only see 1 dimension of light. That is, your vision can only see brightness. If you had 2 color receptors, then you can see in 2 dimensions of light, which is brightness and hue. Having 3 allows us to see in 3 dimensions, which we call brightness, hue, and saturation.
Where this really gets interesting to me is with butterflies. The species Graphium sarpedon has 15 different types of photo receptors. Which means it can see in 15 dimensions because it can create so many more combinations of light that arent possible with only 3. The mantis shrip, Order Stomatopoda, is a close second with 12 different types of photo receptors.
For anyone who wants to experience something close to this, try a quick experiment. Take a pair of cheap polarized sunglasses (they have to be polarized), pop out one lens and rotate it 90 degrees. Youll notice that some light appears to shimmer, namely light thats reflected (e.g. off cars). This is because relfected light is polarized, but because your lenses are at 90 deg, only one eye can see it. This causes the light to exist in one eye and creates a dichotomy your brain doesnt know how to show. But by doing this youre simulating a 4D version of vision, with brightness, hue, saturation, and polarization.
I was confused why this only has 6 likes until I saw it was posted 13 hours ago lol
This is really cool
@@TheOtherOne7isBlueMaid glad you enjoyed it :)
That's awesome to know! How about if you put on a pair of 3D glasses? Aren't they polarized in different directions?
@@bobcarn yes! Those should work too
The receptor for light and dark is not a colour receptor. There are rod cells and cone cells. Cone cells detect light. Rods tell us if it's dark or bright. Colours on the colour wheel are all the same brightness. They're just different hues.
Finally! Great to see your channel isn't dead (anymore). One of the best science/explanation channels I've ever come across.
Fucking extraordinary explanation skills, I have so much respect for people who can convey difficult topics in such an easy to understand way. Well done!
I'm color-impaired, and a scientist, and despite reading a lot about color mixing over the years, have somehow never realized that the color wheel mixes the two ends of the spectrum to create the purples. This clarifies a lot! I still am confused by a lot of colors I see, but this is a really helpful framework. Thanks!
I have extra sharp cones and I see purple in a rainbow in the sky..
This vid taught me more about light than 6 years of physics, by far the best explanation of color perception ever
Edit: I should've said biology instead of physics
it's not really about light in itself though, it's about how our brain perceives light, it's pretty understandable that you were never tought it in 6 years of physics, this is biology.
Maybe it's because they didn't teach about light waves for 6 years?
+RonuPlays 6 years of physics, you say? Sorry to break it to you, bro, but 5 years of elementary school science classes and 1 year of middle school science doesn't count.
I learned about all this in an astronomy class
Probably should have taken 6 years of optics.
This is sooo good, so marvelously, tastily, so good. This is good because of the animations and the tight script
Worth noting that outside of lasers, we (almost?) never experience light of a single wavelength. That light you see that looks red is far from a pure red.
Now I want a purple laser
@@bapanada9446 Doable if you're willing to have two lasers outputting together (not dissimilar to how LCD monitors produce purple using blue and red).
@@bapanada9446 You could, in theory, have a violet LASER.
@@buddyclem7328 I saw a violet laser once. It was really weird cuz you couldn't focus on the beam; kinda like staring at a black light.
@@NightHawk71000 That sounds even stranger than I imagined! I want to see one.
This is the kind of quality content I signed up for.
You're back! Thank you, missed the content!
OH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS EXPLANATION FOR SO LONG
This has been the best visualization of how we see colors that I've yet seen, nice work! Made it so simple to understand
This is FANTASTIC. It's simplified of course (the cone cells have sensitivity distributions that are more nuanced than that), but it definitely gets the idea across, and I don't think I've ever seen it explained this clearly. Well done!
Welcome back! You've been missed! Great explanation as always!
This is still one of my favorite videos on this site. Miss this channel!
Great stuff, I´m glad you´re back
Best explanation of perception of colour I've ever seen! It shows so well how light wavelength is one thing and percieved colour another.
I wondered about this exact topic in my previous semester, glad you made a video on it. Keep up the good work!
Incredible graphics, this really helps put everything into perspective
Wow! this is such an awesome explanation. I've heard about this in the past but it never clicked like your visuals did for me. Wonderful.
Yo! I like how easy this was to understand. Not to mention the superb animations.
Keep up the good work! 💎
this place- *spends a year not doing anything*
this place after a year- Hey, why don’t I just say that there’s no purple?
it just never came up.
I have a feeling he played lots of pinball, actually
Thank you for creating. You do an incredible job of breaking down complex ideas in a humorous and engaging way.
Among the best explanations of this I've met, good job!
what I really love about this video is that it's the same _place_ throughout. it really makes it easier to focus on the logic (especially on a friday)
This editing style is so *beautiful.* I didn't know I could think that about editing. Ha
o0Avalon0o its expensive software probly
marshall branin k thanks for that
I have heard this explained about 10 different times and this still managed to make it interesting by adding a perspective I never considered. Sub quickly earned.
4 minutes.
Really Well explained, well animated, you don't waste watch time on useless content but you keep focused on the important part and explain it correctly. It was a very good experience, you deserve more :)
You really have an explanatory GIFT!!
I couldn't understand the color perception theory in any other manual/video etc. Only with your video this all thing clicked!
I hope you won't go back to hibernation again. I really liked this video and I have really enjoyed your previous works. The perspective video was fantastic.
Amazing. I've watched a lot of videos on this exact subject because I've been really curious about it, and I'd had a pretty good understanding up until this point, but this was by far the most thorough and succinct explanation I've seen. Truly great job, thank you. I loved the bit when you explained why we've turned the linear nature of light into a wheel by arranging the cones into a triangle and showing them light up in a circle like that. Simple, genius, and effective visuals throughout.
paint yourself purple to cease your existence for the universe
You are honest to goodness my favourite youtube channel it is always exciting to see new videos from you!!!
Excellent work. This is very much appreciated.
We can see violet as a hue of purple because there's another smaller peak in detection for the red photoreceptors at a much shorter wavelength, so violet light stimulates blue and red photoreceptors at the same time.
Omg ur back I love ur vids been here since 1000 subs
Of the three videos I've seen about this, this is the best one.
Easy to follow and straight to the point, thus short.
Wow! When you make a comeback you make a comeback! This is such an intuitive explanation for something that feels intuitive but is not.
I’ve seen so much talking about how light works with our eyes but for some reason only this one made it click thanks to the purple example. Thanks for the video!
Great explanation! Can't wait for the next video tomorrow...
Your uploads make me happy!
Nicely done!
This is awesome! I had heard explanations relating to this before but hadn't really understood what was going on. After watching this one, it all clicks for me now. Thank you!
Thanks for emphasizing that "yes, purple exists" because I so often see people calling purple and magenta "fake" colors which is... not recognizing that everything you experience is just an interpretation.
One of the best description of color I've seen in my life time. Thank you very much. I will be rewatching.
wow I just had my greatest aha moment on youtube thanks for explaining how colors mix.... for us
You are a clear explainer and lucid educator. Thank you for creating this.
"IN YOUR BRAIN"
rofl! killied me!
Finally a video that explained how is that possible to mix different light frequencies and make us see a new color instead of the two colors simultaneously! Congratulations and thanks a LOT!!!
what if we're all just colorblind
No matter how you look at it, everyone is colorblind. The electromagnetic spectrum is very big and visible light is only a tiny sliver of it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. After a degree in physics and several graduate classes, having taught it for a few years and keeping up with the trends, I haven't learned anything really new in BASIC physics in 20 years. I even taught the additive and subtractive methods of color combination with appropriate demos. I taught how it worked but never WHY it worked. This video changed everything. Basic physics (almost high school level) that I didn't have a clue about. And a complete description using the best of teaching methods. And great graphics.
this comment solved my friend's existential crisis, thank you
There’s another quirk about purple. Take a photo of a “UV” LED, or just find one online, and take a look at the image in an editor. Look at what colour it’s producing. It has significant values of both blue and red light, and it looks the same as when you see such an LED with your naked eye. Even though LEDs produce a very narrow single band of light, this 405nm stimulates both red and blue photoreceptors of a camera, and of our eye, because both these sensors’ red receptors have a small peak that’s sensitive to blue light as well. Though in the case of a digital camera it’s actually a filter that blocks out most other colours and lets a bit of blur through. So when looking at a very far blue wavelength, we see it as an indigo or purple because our colour sensors aren’t perfectly smooth distributions with a single peak.
first no pluto and now no purple? science you're doing me wrong
I think this is the best explanation as to how/why we see purple I've seen. Thank you! Seeing the distributions really helped for me
2:32 : "But it sorta works, you can see it sorta working."
Me: nope, i just see red and green... guess my eyes are broken.
the yellow is the light mixing in the middle you may have red green color blindness legit
@@thunderborn3231 It's faint though. Noticeable, but barely.
thank God I am not the only one - and I am not colourblind!
You guys just aren't used to isolating what you see. The yellow is there. Here, let me help you isolate your vision --> gfycat.com/fluidunlawfulatlasmoth
your eyes are probably ok (but don't quote me on that). he was talking about the mix of green and red where cones intersect. it's hard to call that "yellow", it's more like greenish-redish blob of something
This is one of the best videos of all time--in my view. Fascinating topic. Tour de force explanation. And so concise! Great visuals too. Nice work! This is like the 10th time I have watched this.
For the last god only knows how many years I've been staring at the screens that have only 3 color lights (rgb) but my brain doesn't know that.
The next generation will probably spend more time experiencing sceen lights than any other lights.
I can imagine people in near future that don't leave simulations, and all they see is just 3 waves length light unless we develop new kind of screens that use different ways to show a picture.
O.O
Glad to see you making a video again. ^^ As usually a great mix of straightforward explanation with just a little sarcasm.
Nobody:
Eric Andre: WHAT IF IT WAS PURPLE
wow, that's the most intuitive explanation I have seen on this topic
This guy: "There is no purple light"
Me: *sees purple colors on things*
Me: okay clickbait
them: makes actually very accurate and well argued point
you: cant admit being wrong about something
@@lt3880 Them: Decides to nonsensically decide that indigo & violet aren't shades of purple, even though they're both called purple by literally every person on the planet
@@lt3880 The title is definitely clickbait. Or demonstrates ignorance of what color actually is. Color is by definition a perception, *not* a physical property of light. Technically, neither objects *nor* light have color. Even Sir Isaac Newton already knew this and wrote "Indeed rays [of light], properly expressed, are not coloured. In them there is nothing else than a certain power or disposition to stir up a sensation of this or that colour."
On the physical side, you have reflection or emission spectra, but not color. Colors are a perception, created by the brain in response to those spectra hitting the retinas, and therefore are subjective and depend on context. Meaning that physically identical spectra can be perceived as different colors. There are many optical "illusions" that demonstrate this, such as the checker shadow illusion, or that infamous black/blue white/gold dress. And conversely, different physical spectra can be perceived as the same color. Yellow is a simple example for that (spectral i.e. single wavelength yellow vs. yellow made from red + green - physically different, but perceptually identical, and therefore the same color).
To say that "there is no purple light" is technically correct, but makes it sound extraordinary, although it isn't, because "there is no red light" either. Because technically, light is colorless. Colloquially, it's of course fine to talk about materials and light as if color were an inherent property of them, because that makes life simpler.
A more accurate way to rephrase the video title would be "purple (magenta) isn't a spectral color (i.e. cannot be evoked with a single wavelength of light)".
I have been wondering this for ages and you just explained everything to me so clearly! Wow.
reminds me of that Nat geo video "animals can't be blue"
Do suns/stars in other solar systems give off different colors, since their color depends on their age?
Yes
It also depends on the atmosphere of the planet you view the star from.
i love your ending to this
just really simple
so in fact the limitations of our biology have allowed us to see the world with more diversity and beauty than there really is.
Evolution or design?
It's not more diverse, than it really is. You got one extra color: a purple. What you've lost? Ability to see a real yellow and many other colors. I mean you can't tell the difference between yellow and mixture of red and green. What you see is a mixture of red and green, and you have never seen a yellow! You have never seen many more colors.
@@jarlfenrir how can you know if you can't see it?
@@MrBearyMcBearface W can't see many things, but we know about them because of science.
@@jarlfenrir certainly, but we're talking about "real yellow". What makes real yellow even yellow if you can't see it? I can see yellow. If I can't see real yellow how is that more real than the yellow I can see? Even if we made something that could see it. How would it show it to us?
Glad to see another video :)
Love the hard work. Keep it up
Wait, violet and purple are different things?
Yes, in fact, they are. That is why they have different names.
I was prepared to unload scorn for this topic being covered by Veritasium and SciShow already, but after watching it, I must congratulate you for presenting it in a wholly original way! I have a new understanding of the nature of light. Great video!
02:20 so why didn't you put them together?
YOU HAD THEM RIGHT THERE!
i think he was trying to showing yellow in the middle.
@@themexis there was no yellow
@@flamixflame2685 There was, but he said that his flashlights were shitty so they didn't work as well as they should. If you look closely where the two lights cross each other you can see a faint greenish-yellow light.
Fuck. You were my favorite channel two years ago, when I used to watch a lot of videos. I liked to watch kurzgesagt, or stated clearly, but I always preferred you channel. I liked to content the most and I felt more welcomed, I'm really glad to see that you are back and from the bottom of my heart I love you @thisplace and your channel you might be one of the reasons I choose my career.
Also u know what?
*There's no black light*
Because black is a lack of light. For that matter, there is no "cold" either. It's just a lack of warmth. Same thing applies almost everywhere.
Cham But we defined „cold“ to be the lack of heat.
There's no heavy light, because heavy is not light, but lack of heaviness, but it's light
There's no lettuce light.
*there's no.*
Glad to have you back!
I'm colourblind and purple looks pretty much the same as blue :(
Why are you sad? You never saw purple in the first place so you don't even know what your missing.
Agreed. Purple is just a reddish shade of blue, not worth getting excited over.
Happy to see more content, let us know what you need to quit whatever else you are working on so you can spend more time doing this. Not sure if you know this yourself Jessie, but you have the highest quality educational videos on UA-cam, so please make more.
380 - 420 nm wavelength light would like to have a talk with you...
You mean violet? It is not purple
@@svankensen And yet, violet is purple in color, and purple is violet in color, and both are found at 380 - 420 nm wavelength of the spectrum... Of course pedantically semantic videos like this one try to insert the limitations of pigments into the visual spectrum, and they are not the same, and that is where the video and you are wrong.
@@nobodyuknow2490 More information about the difference between violet and purple: jakubmarian.com/difference-between-violet-and-purple/
Yeah, he's wrong. There is no PINK light. (magenta)
@@ntdscherer From your own link:
"Purple and violet look similar only to humans
To us, humans, purple looks like a more saturated shade of violet[...]"
Ok, show me the species that isn't human but can conceptualize and discuss the finer points of purple vs. violet, and we will then divest Purple from Violet... Until then, it's semantics and 380-420nm wave length light is PURPLE, the video is wrong, and it's nothing but splitting hairs of semantics to try and suggest that "der iz no such thing!" when it is empirically evident that there is.
This is the best explanation of "purple" I have come across, and I have viewd many videos and sort articles about it.
Thanks for this very clear video I can share with my friends.
Video not 100% accurate concerning retinal signal transmission. Good basic summary though.
Point out a missinformation pls
Do you know where I can find a scientific source for this subject?
I love you!!! Keep doing videos, no matter how many years it takes
You're describing Magenta, not Purple, imo. Purple is a more general term that includes magenta, violet, etc. Violet light causes red receptors in the eye to fire a little bit.
Awesome video, just blew my mind with that. I wonder what you come out with next
this place: leaves for a year
also this place: **decides to come back and make a video confronting the idea that there is no purple**
I love it
3:35 "who can even tell the difference?... I cant"
the way you delivered that line was very funny to me.
Is this why colourblind people see 2 colours the same?
Yes and no... it's complicated. A color-blind person usually has a deficiency where one cone is weaker than it should be making the other two receptors pick up their signals stronger. But it really depends on the type of color-blindness and can even differ on the individual. Take for instance a Red-Green color-blind person... if their "red" cone is deficient then the blue and green cones will be more pronounced. To that individual the colors in the purple/magenta range will seem more blue and less red and the violet range can look totally like blue (think of it like a shift or squish towards blue). This is because the red cone isn't as strong as it should be. Likewise on the red-green side of things colors in the yellow range might look more green and be confusing. One of the common tests for Red-Green colorblindness is red-on-brown or brown-on-red pattern detection. But like I said there are many different types of color-blindness and even differences between each category so it is just how I see the world being red-green colorblind (most common type among men).
I'd give a simpler answer than Darkmethods: yes. That's exactly why colorblind people see two colors the same.
Eg when a person is hit with a yellow light, a red and green cones are giving a signal. But when the red cone is not working, one gets output only from green one - exactly the same situation as he'd be hit with a green light. So a person blind for red, wouldn't be able to tell a difference between green and yellow.
This is one of my favorite topics, and now this is my favorite video on it.
culture the photo receptors/neurons of pistol shrimp and then dope a human retina with them. We have three photo receptors, pistol shrimp have 22
get some serious sensory overload going
omg my favorite YT channel is making videos again, it must be my birthday
'We don't see it in rainbows'
I'll have you know! "Red and yellow and pink and green.
Purple and orange and blue" the world famous *Sing a Rainbow* song clearly states that purple is in a rainbow so I don't believe you.
If this was about pink, it'd be correct. Purple, generally speaking, is a broad color term and much of what we consider purple is actually part of the visible spectrum. While the specific "purple" from a given color authority may be outside our visible range, 380nm to 450nm wavelength light is often considered purple and still visible. I have a 405nm laser that is quite purply. Should have made it about pink.
1st？
Probably.
Oh gee oh man I wanted to be first
Ah jeez, oh no, I'm sorry bro/brozette .. But It's ok. I've been watching UA-cam since 2006 and I ain't never got 1st on a good, new video like this .. It feels like Leo winning that Oscar for the Revenant though. Wasn't even worth the wait.
Appreciate the video though my UA-camr homie though. I love the electromagnetic spectrum and quantum subatomic particles.
I've been teaching my young kids since they were little about light and colors. This is the best explanation for it I've seen.
This is such a nice illustrated explanation. Liked it a lot
Dude, well done. This is a really well made video, keep it up!
Good to have you back. I missed you