Tumblr Thread: Magenta Doesn't Exist, It's Just The Brain Doing Its Best

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Eric Lund
Oct 11, 2021 4:00 PM EDT

Tumblr has a way of explaining things that make life more interesting and complex, but also a little less secure. The deal here is that, like many things that seem certain, our eyes and brain are just making pragmatic guesses about the nature of reality so that we don't have to think about if something is green or magenta, and have more free time to focus on our fear of bears. Leave it to the eye-nerds at Tumblr. For some more eye-opening nuggets on the nature of reality, here are some strange science facts to ponder as well as a thread on the relative independence of human babies.

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  • 01
    Colorfulness - v9z Follow rb this with ur opinion on this shade of pink: inkwingart Follow This is magenta, and not pink. Unlike pink, magenta doesn't actually exist. Our brain just invents magenta to serve as what it considers a logical bridge between red and violet, which each exist at opposite ends of a linear spectrum. TL;DR this color is fake (and also I hate it) achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily Follow W what
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  • 02
    Font - achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily Follow Q is magenta real ALL IMAGES NEWS MAPS VIDEOS Violet and red, the two components of magenta, are at opposite ends of the visible spectrum and have very different wavelengths. The additive secondary color magenta, as noted above, is made by combining violet and red light at equal intensity; it is not present in the spectrum itself. W https://en.m.wikipedia.org wiki Magenta - Wikipedia
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  • 03
    Colorfulness - 91% 11:57 AM Magenta - Wikipe.. en.m.wikipedia.org Magenta is not part of the visible spectrum of light. Visible spectrum wrapped to join violet and red in an additive mixture of magenta. In reality, violet and red are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and have very different wavelengths.
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  • 04
    Font - /0 shaaknaa Follow Wait til you learn about Stygean Blue pyrrhiccomedy Follow Your brain is a badly-designed hot mess of bootstrapped chemistry that will tell you that all kinds of shit is happening that has no correlation to physical reality, including time travel. It just makes things up. Your brain is guessing about what's happening when your eyes saccade, what's happening in your blind spot, and what the majority of the visible light spectrum looks like, and you don't know it's happen
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  • 05
    Font - Let's have a little fun with that thought. This is the visible spectrum of light. -Increasing Frequency (v) 10 10 10 10 102 10 10 10 10 vt) y rays X rays UV AM Microwave FM Radio waves IR Long radio waves 10 10-12 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 A (m) Increasing Wavelength ()- Visible spectrum 400 500 600 700 Increasing Wavelength 0) in nm You will of course note that yellow is on the chart. Yellow has a discreet wavelength, and is therefore a distinct physical color. But we can't see it. "Sor
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  • 06
    Font - Some animals have eyes that can perceive the color yellow! Goldfish have a yellow cone in their eyes. If they could talk, they could tell us what yellow looks like. But we wouldn't be able to understand it. What your brain actually sees of the color spectrum: 104 1012 10-to 10* : 10* 10 10 10 Increa YUP got it Visible spectrum uh-huh shrug idk NOPE LOL 400 500 600 700 Increasing Wavelength (2) in nm - We can measure the wavelength of light, so we know that when we see 'yellow, we are seei
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  • 07
    Font - That's how colors blend in our eyes. So sure, if a photon of light with a wavelength of 550 nanometers bounces into our eyes, we see what we call "yellow." But if we see two photons at the same time, coming from the same object, one of which is 500 nms and the other of which is 600 nms, your brain will average them out and you will still see yellow even though none of the light you just saw was 550 nms. So how does magenta factor into this? Well, as we've just established, when your brain
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  • 08
    Font - What happens if you take the average of blue and red light, which we perceive to be magenta? What's the centerpoint of that line? F king green. Hey, that's not gonna work? We live on a planet where EVERYTHING IS GREEN. If something is NOT green, that means it's either food, or a potential source of danger, and either way your brain wants you to know about it. So your brain goes, WHOOPS. Okay - this is fine. We already made up yellow, orange, cyan, and violet. We'll just make up another co
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  • 09
    Rectangle - 0.9 :520 515 530 540 0.8 550 0.7 560 0.6 570 0.5 580. y 590 0.4 600 610 .620 0.3 700 0.2 480 0.1 470. 460. 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 400- FFF
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  • 10
    Font - Explaining this thing is a little more than I want to take on on a Saturday morning, but l've included a link above that goes into it a little more. The point is that only the colors that actually touch the 'outline' of the shape actually correspond to a specific wavelength of light. All of the other colors are blends of multiple wavelengths. So magenta isn't special. Given that color is just a fun trick your brain is playing on you to help you find food and avoid danger, is magenta real?
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  • 11
    Human body - spot. The perception of color exists within your brain, and your brain says you see magenta. So you see magenta.
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wtf mindblown facts tumblr magenta interesting brain reality science explanation
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