• Question: Are there any colours we can't see?

    Asked by fishernwh to David, Helen, Ian, rhysphillips, Sarah on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Rhys Phillips

      Rhys Phillips answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      There are parts of the spectrum we can’t see – not sure if you’d describe them as colours though. The electromagnetic spectrum consists of:

      Radio Waves
      Micro Waves
      Infra Red
      VISIBLE LIGHT
      Ultra Violet
      X-Rays
      Gamma Rays

      Out of those, only the middle section (VISIBLE LIGHT) is… well visible to us with the naked human eye.

    • Photo: Helen Fletcher

      Helen Fletcher answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      My colleague Pam Trigg says:

      There are a huge range of colours that aren’t visible to the human eye. Coloured light is due to the different wavelengths of vibration of photons. There are a huge range of wavelengths that photons can vibrate at. These vary from radio waves at 10,000 km to gamma rays at 1/10000000000000 of a mm.

    • Photo: Ian van der Linde

      Ian van der Linde answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      In a way, no, because something we can’t see isn’t a colour. Colour is the name for light that we perceive. Even if we put on special goggles to let us see part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can’t normally see, like UV, we’d have to display it on the screen in the goggles in a colour that we *can* see, like blue.

Comments

  • Photo: Helen

    Helen commented on :

    Another answer from work:
    Yes, colours come from the wavelength of the light and humans can only see light within the ‘visible spectrum’ (around 390-750nm) ie. red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet. Outside this spectrum are colours such as infra-red and ultra-violet and other animals can see these as well as the visible spectrum colours – insects such as bees, and many birds can see ultra-violet for example.