Why Do We See Colors?

We only see radiation with 400nm to ~700nm. It seems so strange when the electromagnetic radiation spans factors and factors of 10. Why such a small slice? Why just Red, Green, and Blue? and more importantly... how?

Note: At 6:30 I say tetrachromats don't see 'more' colors than trichromats. That was a mistake, I meant to say 'New' colors. They certainly see more. Just not new ones. Unless you consider hues and shades new colors.

Sources:
Color Vision: Perspectives from Different Disciplines

[urbanladiebug]

Why is this so underrated?This channel has a great deal of research and visual effects! 10/10

[kennypark]

Loved the balance of detail and clarity for laypeople such as myself. Excellent video, instant sub.

[davidmurphy]

The effort that went into the research, scripting, 2d and 3d visuals in this is truly impressive. Thank you, the result was outstanding.

Funnily enough I'm decently colourblind and you'll be surprised how little that matters in everyday life. Of course, seeing sabretooth tigers in reeds isn't a huge part of the modern gene selection process. :)

I'm really surprised that these chemical interactions can happen so quickly. Particularly when it comes to free-floating enzymes. Do you know: does this happen 24 times a second or it is longer and different cones are cycling in a phased way?

[Mawa]

Vision Researcher here: good video. For those interested, there is a bit more to say about why we dont see UV and infrared. UV: our eyes are to big. As a general rule, animals with big eyes dont see UV. That’s because UV light gets scattered inside the eye ball before reaching the retina. Some birds can see UV, some cant - you guessed it: small birds can, big birds cant.
Infrared: here the problem is heat. Heat radiates in Infrared. So if we would see infrared, everything would glow and that signal would be all over the place. It wouldn’t help us.

[JaiJaiSings]

the effort behind this video. Someday this channel's gonna have hundreds of thousands of subs :) keep it up mate

[darkseraph]

A neat fact: I actually can see near visible ranges of UV light.

In fact, the S cone of your eye can detect a range of approximately 20 nanometers into the UV part of the spectrum. The reason you don't normally detect it though is because the lens that focuses light into your eye also filters out UV light.

My filters are either damaged or did not form properly. As a result, daylight has a bright but subtly pale-violet component to it.

The only reason I discovered why I find sunny days to be unberable is because of a pair of transitions glasses I used to own. Turns out photochromic lenses block UV.

[Safe_intentions]

Note: At 6:30 I say tetrachromats don't see 'more' colors than trichromats. That was a mistake, I meant to say 'New' colors. They certainly see more. Just not new ones. Unless you consider hues and shades new colors.

[nicholasauwaerts]

Next science clic / Smarter every Day / Veratasium channel. You're one of the best channels who can explain something that satisfies both students as teachers! I'm using you're video's in my classroom and i see the diffirence before and after it in the students.

[eltiobry]

Right now you have 200k subs, that is criminally low, the detail in your videos is so good that i am definitely going to watch all your videos, thank you so much for these, they are invaluable. Also feels like my brain is eating candy or something

[siraryx]

Love the detailed simplicity in explaining advanced topics. The views and subscribe count ought to be way higher considering the empirical quality. PS: Since you're making these great videos about light, could you make a video that answers wether light can be bent (i.e. by gravity), can photons bounce off one another, how can information stored in light be teleported in quantum mechanics, or how can quantum mechanics disclose if information transferred through fiber optics has been altered or eavesdropped on?

[flyinlow]

What an enlightening notion. "If we needed to see it, we probably would".

[josewelingtondasilva]

You are insanely smart. Quite impressive teaching there. About the video, it has also very good pictures and direction

[tnt]

This is an absolutely amazing video!!!You explained the photo transduction cascade process well that it can be understood in regards to cones!! I really fell on a gem because it was really hard to find videos that explain the photo transduction cascade but with cones instead of rods! I also really love the level of detail in this video and how much research was put in! The animation is also so good!!! Please keep up the amazing work! :D

[datbarricade]

I had the basic function of the eye in 11th class biology. But damn this is interesting and a LOT more complicated than I thought. We stopped at "There is Retinal, which gets excited and changes its form." and I already thought this is super high detail. Really nice, gonna watch more of your stuff :D

[SoulDelSol]

I'm red green colorblind and your comparison of tetrachromates to regular color vision is a good way to help regular color vision people understand what it's like to be colorblind. I often say that i can't distinguish between colors that other people can, or certain colors look same to me but different to you. This very well explains it. People say "what do you only see a few colors?". I respond that no i still see huge array of colors but i just can't tell close shades apart, particularly colors that have greens and/or reds in them. I bought encroma glasses which has filter that blocks out wavelengths of light where red and green cones overlap, allowing them to each be stimulated separately.

[danktankdragkings]

You earned a subscription with one video very well done. And I've never seen the protein chain explained when asking why color. Thank you.

[SeaTolli]

Most underrated channel I've seen omg you deserve so many more subs

[eliedidomenica]

BEAUTIFUL 😍😍😍
Now, I can see what is going on inside my eyes when I am watching Youtube videos.
Thanks !

[Arominit]

Learned more from this channel this week than in high school 🙃

[theladd]

I saw you writing about not wanting ads on your videos and I can understand that, but if you set up a Patreon or something similar I would definitely subscribe cuz your content is so well made and you deserve support if you want it.