It’s not a spectral color. That is, no one wavelength of light can reproduce it. But I’ve seen magenta things, and there is widespread intersubjective agreement about what is magenta and what isn’t. It damn well is a color.
Do not confuse concepts when you use a confusing word. There is no wavelength simultaneously above 740nm and below 450nm. There is a vector for monitor pixels. Whatever it is you mean by “color”, these two facts explain magenta. Think like the star, not like the starfish.
That said, it makes it a lot easier to ward off the “color means such-and-such wavelength of light” simplification in discussions of color experience. That definition fails to find equivalent the “yellow experience” that you see from yellow light and the “yellow experience” that you see from combined red and green light—but it’s much cheaper to note that it simply fails to classify magenta (and nearby colors) as colors.
A propos: Magenta isn’t a color.
It’s not a spectral color. That is, no one wavelength of light can reproduce it. But I’ve seen magenta things, and there is widespread intersubjective agreement about what is magenta and what isn’t. It damn well is a color.
Do not confuse concepts when you use a confusing word. There is no wavelength simultaneously above 740nm and below 450nm. There is a vector for monitor pixels. Whatever it is you mean by “color”, these two facts explain magenta. Think like the star, not like the starfish.
That’s… precipitating a question, providing a mysterious answer to a question too simple to ask, and probably a few other things.
I still think it’s spooky.
That said, it makes it a lot easier to ward off the “color means such-and-such wavelength of light” simplification in discussions of color experience. That definition fails to find equivalent the “yellow experience” that you see from yellow light and the “yellow experience” that you see from combined red and green light—but it’s much cheaper to note that it simply fails to classify magenta (and nearby colors) as colors.
Yes, it’s a very interesting thing they’re pointing out. The article deserves to exist. It just needs to use words right.