The Great Magenta Debate

There has been a lot of controversy online about magenta lately. No, we're not talking about the character from Sky High who could transform herself into a guinea pig when needed, we're talking about the color, or as one side of the controversy would say, the non-color.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we did not want to enter this fray, but with the increasing intensity of argument on both sides of the debate we decided it would be unwise for us to let this run its course as a large percentage of the world's population would have to be sacrificed before any agreement was reached. We would like to state unequivocally that magenta is a color. If anyone asks, tell them "The GNU Public Dictatorship has approved the color magenta." If they still resist, inform your local GPD office so that appropriate action can be taken.

For those who are satisfied with our pronouncement, you may cease reading right now and go about your life. For those few dissatisfied citizens, we will now provide a brief outline of the reasoning that led to this debacle and the true line of reasoning that will resolve it.

It seems that some bright student of physics noticed that the spectrum (the collection of all of the visible wavelengths of light), which starts with red and ends with purple, and the color wheel are not equivalent. The color wheel is a wheel, and is much like taking the spectrum and making it into a circle. This act places purple and red next to each other and creates the intermediate color magenta (along with many other shades of purples and pinks). This student then decided that if something does not appear in the spectrum (or that it is not composed of a single wavelength of light) it is not a true color. While it is true that magenta cannot be composed of a single wavelength of light, there are many other colors that we perceive that are composed of multiple wavelengths. It is very important here to distinguish between "wavelength" and "color." If people understood this distinction the debate would likely vanish in a proverbial puff of smoke.

The bottom line is that color is an act of perception, while wavelength is a scientific description of the properties of light. Colors are perceived, they do not exist on their own. Wavelengths of light exist on their own, and any perception of the wavelengths may or may not be accurate. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we hope that this clarification will end the debate once and for all.