Fun Video: Pink Light Doesn't Exist

There's no such thing as pink. Scientifically speaking, that is. It's just something our brain makes up. All colors correspond to specific wavelengths of light. But there's no wavelength in the spectrum for pink. Instead, it's a bit of neural trickery.

The light spectrum consists of a range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. Red light has the longest wavelength; violet the shortest. The colors in between have wavelengths between those of red and violet light.

When we see colors, our brains are actually detecting the different wavelengths of the light hitting the eye's retina. Colors are distinguished by their wavelengths, and the brain processes this information and produces a visual display that we experience as color.

But there's a gap in the spectrum between red and violet. In reality, this gap is filled with all types of light in the universe. Those wavelengths, however, are invisible to our eyes, and so our brains create pink to fill the gap. In fact, pink is just white light minus the green wavelengths.

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