Sunday, July 07, 2013

Mould's Magic of Magenta

I don't know much about this Steve Mould character, but I feel like I should. He's responsible for showing off the bead chain curiosity posted below and now (via serendipitous clicking), I come across this.

This video relates color vision back to the optical biology involved. It compelled me to learn more about cones and rods than I knew.

For example, I didn't know there was a 20:1 between these two types of photoreceptors, but there is. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is preferred. (The population of the preferred one is 90 million, vs. 4.5 million of the other.) I didn't know about S, M, and L cone types, either. Why must I get dumber as I get older?

Anyway, check out this story of color vision as told by Steve Mould. At the risk of offending fans of My Little Pony, I'm going to say that friendship is simple; magenta is magic!

Colour Mixing: The Mystery of Magenta




But what about violet? It's a pure, unmixed color with a wavelength range all its own. If magenta is triggered by [spoiler alert] the red cones and blue cones getting tickled while the green cones are not, is violet the result of a weak tickling on the blue cones while the rods are reporting plenty of light?

My ignorance knows no bounds.

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