What are the 3 primary colors of light?

Question

I know that they are green, red and blue, but why green, don't you need yellow and blue to make green? :T

But like, why are the colors red, blue and green?

Answer 1

There really is no such thing as primary colors. There is no finite set of wavelengths of light which can produce the complete optical spectrum. However, light of any two wavelengths in the visible spectrum can create the human visual perception of any color. Human optical receptors are sensitive at three separate wavelengths. Other animals can have more or fewer separate detection wavelengths. Color perception is done by the brain by comparing the relative response of the three sets of color receptors. This is why two lasers are enough to generate a full-color hologram.

Television uses three (RGB, red green blue) for better linearity and interpolation, therefore more accurate color perception. Pigments are subtractive, not additive. A dye will absorb some portions of the spectrum. The details of the absorbtion spectrum generally aren't simple.

Answer 2

No. When dealing with light, Red and Green makes Yellow. Green and Blue makes Cyan, and Red and Blue makes Magenta. This is called RGB. The mixing of Red, Green and Blue makes White. Additive mixing of light is quite different from the subtractive mixing of pigments. When you add the wavelengths together you get a new color.

You can prove this by taking a red light and a green light and shining them on the same spot. If the lights are pure colors the spot where the light overlaps will be yellow.

Pigments use CMYK, which is Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK. The color we see is the color that is reflected to our eye. The other colors are absorbed by the pigment.

No one else who has answered this question has any idea how light works. they are thinking in terms of mixing paint, which is totally different.

Answer 3

Kokopelli has described the difference between additive and subtractive color systems. You are confusing the two - yellow + blue pigment makes green, but yellow + blue light will make white.

The additive primaries (red, green, blue) correspond roughly to the three color sensors in the human cone cells. When light stimulates all three, we perceive that as white.

The subtractive primaries are complementary to the additive colors. Cyan pigment absorbs red light, reflecting green and blue; magenta absorbs green, and yellow absorbs blue. All three primary pigments together absorb all light, giving you, theoretically, black. In practice, it's a sort of murky brown, so printing processes use a fourth, black, ink.

These three-color systems work because they are matched to how our eye perceives color. A spectral analysis of the light from an object and a picture of that object could be very different, even though our eyes see the same color in both cases.

Answer 4

Red, blue, and green are the primary colors of light. Mixing these colors can produce all of the colors of the spectrum.

Answer 5

The main colors are yellow, red, and blue.

Answer 6

blue yellow red=primary colors

Answer 7

starting with the longest wavelength red yellow blue (the rainbow is a spectrum of light waves red to violet)

Answer 8

yellow, red, and blue.

Answer 9

Omg all of your comments are from 2008!!!!! 0_0