🌈 HOW YOUR EYES SEE COLOUR
PAGE 1 OF 5 · LIGHT BECOMES COLOUR
SEE
COLOUR IS NOT INSIDE THE APPLE
A red apple looks red because light bounces off it into your eyes. White sunlight is a mix of many wavelengths. Objects absorb some colours and reflect others. The reflected light hits your retina at the back of the eye. Special cells there turn light into electrical signals. Your brain reads those signals and builds the experience of colour. So colour is a team job: light, eye, and brain together. No light, no colour vision: that is why rooms look grey in the dark.
⚡ DID YOU KNOW?
The retina holds roughly 130 million light-sensitive cells called photoreceptors, a common textbook estimate for how many detectors your eyes use.
LIGHT!
EYE
👁️ Light enters the cornea and lens, which focus it onto the retina at the back.
📡 The retina converts light patterns into nerve signals headed for the brain.
📡 The retina converts light patterns into nerve signals headed for the brain.
BRAIN
🧠 Your brain builds colour from nerve signals; the rainbow lives in your visual system.
🌈 That is why colour can look different in shadow, sunset, or bright noon sun.
🌈 That is why colour can look different in shadow, sunset, or bright noon sun.