There is no pink light

Pink doesn't exist!

Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute!

Music by Nathaniel Schroeder

Created by Henry Reich Created by Henry Reich

[NikolaSlavkovic]

"Conclusion: All colors are made up. But some colors are more made up than others."

[madhatter]

Wait a minute, does that mean the pink panther is a lie on television?

[Dragoslav_MD]

Gonna listen to some Minus Green Floyd now...

[BaalFridge]

so if gamma rays are pink is that why the hulk is green? all the minus green got in him

[MelSnyder]

I find this interesting because I am red-green color-blind (actually, color-blind is color-insensitive - under bright light, many of us can differentiate between many [but not all] red and green).

Pink has been particularly difficult for me, as is purple, since my insensitivities line up with the differentiation needed to "see" them as distinct colors. I don't "miss" the absent green in pink, and red is not my strong color. I can look at dark red words on a black background and see almost nothing. If light red (which reflects more light) is on black, I can see a difference in contrast. But in isolation, it takes a big block of very hot pink to register as a color to me. Otherwise it could be gray. And I have purchased very dark purple shirts thinking they were dark blue because I couldn't see the red.

Green similarly needs to be very bright for me to discern it as green. Otherwise, it could be brown or beige to my eyes. To me, the green light on a stoplight is white.

[teel]

so pink sheep is just minus green sheep?

[aconsciousnaut]

This is a proof that invisible pink unicorn exist.

[niv]

He was thinking- "fck i never use that pink pen anyway! i gotta do a video about that"

[andyan]

i've been watching for so long that I didn't notice how much better your art has become in the last 6 years.

[softlysnowing]

0:26 The illustration is misleading; The visible spectrum is a fraction of everything else.

[misterhijack]

you know, nobody has ever really complimented minutephysics drawing skills! I would just like to say it is actually really good and helps some of us understand what you are saying better :)

[MystyrNile]

0:23 That's because there is no "wheel". Wavelengths aren't on a cycle that restarts, they are on a line.

[marcusscience]

Our colour wheel is like an octave, but with light instead of sound. The colours loop around quite nicely, just like how the musical notes loop around in an octave, but end up higher pitched, but still sound the same note. The only difference is that we can hear many octaves of sound but only see one octave of light.
Our colour magenta has the effect of dropping the frequency down an octave while keeping the continuous gradual change in colour.
Red has an ultraviolet counterpart twice its frequency, and violet has an infrared counterpart half its frequency.
One octave apart.
Analogous to musical notes.

[LeahMarkum]

I hope some zookeeper out there named a young flamingo Minus Green.

[KishoreShenoy]

to quote Stephen Fry, from the QI episode "Lying"
"Pink is a pigment of your imagination"

[tanukigalpa]

I'm confused, how can you "roll up" the light spectrum? After all, red light has a long wavelength and violet light has a short wavelength, and everything with a wavelength shorter than violet is ultraviolet. So how can you "roll it up" as if they connect? Can you have light that has such a short wavelength that it becomes a very long wavelength (infrared light)?

[kurtstory]

Specifically to the Flamingo, the pigments that color their feathers are either carotenoids (or if in captivity canthaxanthin). In both cases, these pigments strongly absorb light from ~450-500nm. So Flamingos color is not strongly affected by blue light either. This video could use some more scientific rigor.

[ItsJerryAndHarry]

Dude, mixing paints is a lot different from mixing wavelengths in light.

The color wheel with the gap, where " the rest of the light in the universe is supposed to go" is absolute nonsence. 

Talking about wavelengths ... the violet has shortest, the red has longest. Next to violet is ultraviolet, then come the X-ray. Micro and radio waves are on the other side of electromagnetic wave range -they come after the red.
What I mean is that the "gap" between the red and violet end" would be infinite and you should not say, that the all other light comes between violet and red. By the way, other wavelengths, that are out of human visible spectrum are not called "the light". 

[MattMcConaha]

This would explain why I'm not getting any pink.