This exhibit has a coloured disc that can be rotated by turning a handle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our eyes have special cells that detected coloured light and they are called cones. There are 3 types of cones, ones that can detect red light, and some that detect blue light and the third detect green.

The picture we see on the television is made up of red, blue and green dots. Mixing these 3 colours give all the colours on the television screen. Our eyes are not able to distinguish rapid colours therefore we ‘see’ the separate colours merged together. 

 

What colour will you see make when you turn the handle? 

 

 

 The retina has around 137 million sensory cells, 130 million detecting black and white vision and 7 million detecting colour vision. These cells are called cone cells. The cone cells in a human eye has three visual pigments, each pigment is sensitive to a different primary colour, being either green, red or blue. Any other colour we see is stimulating more than one visual pigment in varying amounts.

 

Ourselves

Light and Dark

How we see things