TED Talk Color Extra Credit Quiz

This TED Talk discussed how the human eye sees colors. Our eyes' see frequency waves, high frequency waves appear to look violet, while low frequency waves appear to look red. The in between frequency we see consists of blues, greens, oranges, and many other colors. This concept is defined as Physical Color because this theory says color is a physical property of light itself. It is not dependent on human perception, according to Colm Kelleher. Light perception happens in our retina's. The retina covers the back of our eyeballs. Inside the retina there are two different types of light detecting cells, rods and cones. The rods are used for seeing in low light conditions. However, there are three types of cone cells, one that responds to the color blue, one that responds to the color red, and one that responds to the color green. When you see a color, each cone sends its own distinct signal to the brain. What happens if the color you are seeing happens to be yellow, not one of the three colors cones see? What happens is the color yellow activates both red and green cones. Our brains' receive the same signal regardless of whether you see light with a yellow frequency or a red frequency.