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 Many students of physics have seen a diagram similar to the one shown at the right. The diagram depicts three circles colored with the primary colors of light - red, green and blue. The primary colored circles overlap to produce other colors of light - known as the secondary colors of light: cyan, magenta and yellow. Complementary pairs of light colors are those colors that are exactly opposite each other on the diagram: red and cyan, magenta and green, and blue and yellow.
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Color Subtraction and Complementary Colors:
An object that is observed to be a specific color when illuminated with white light has absorbed the complementary color of the observed color. White light or R+ G + B was incident on the object. One or more of the components of white light were absorbed or subtracted and the remaining light colors were reflected to the observer's eye.
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The color of a shirt is not in the shirt itself, but rather in the light that the shirt reflects. If red, green and blue light shine on a shirt and the shirt appears yellow, then the red and green light of red, green and blue incident light was reflected. After all, yellow light can be thought of as equivalent to red and green. So if the red and green was reflected, then what happened to the blue light? It was subtracted or absorbed. So blue is absorbed by a shirt that looks yellow. Now think about the color wheel shown in the Dig That Diagram section and you will see the big idea. Blue light - the complement of yellow light - is absorbed when a shirt appears yellow in the presence of white light.
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