stare at this image for five seconds and
without realizing it the photoreceptors
at the back of your eyes will start to
become fatigued so much so that when
this image turns white you see the green
birds as red and the red background is
green all of this happens because of
biological processes in your eyes that
link you to the lives of pollinating
insects can help you design bedrooms or
rooms in your house to be more
satisfying and can also explain why
women can see better than men seeing
color is so freaking cool it kind of
mixes science with sensation and over
millions of years our eyes have evolved
to see wavelengths on the
electromagnetic spectrum roughly between
380 nanometers to around 700 nanometers
that's it wavelengths longer than this
you get into radio waves and microwaves
which our eyes cannot see but they can
send a text wavelength shorter than this
you get into uv rays and gamma rays
again your eyes cannot see but they can
damage your cells and cause cancer but
if we hone in on the wavelengths of
color there are specific patterns that
our eyes pick up most people see less
than 450 nanometers as violet 450 to 485
nanometers as blue 500 to 550 nanometers
as green 570 to 590 nanometers as yellow
590 to 625 nanometers you got gold 625
nanometers and above you get red now no
object actually possesses any color
which is so weird to say all an object
does is absorb certain wavelengths of
light and then reflect others for
example this gorgeous teal seafoam coral
blue is absorbing all the colors except
for that seafoam teal gorgeous blue
which is being reflected to your eye and
your brain is interpreting this as color
for example if you're looking at one of
my favorite flowers the goldenrod which
blooms in august the flowers are
absorbing every wavelength of light
except for the ones between 590 to 625
nanometers again as we said earlier
which most people see as gold this light
is sent to your cornea which bends it
towards the pupil that controls the
amount of light hitting the lens which
focuses the wavelengths onto the back of
your eye called the retina at the back
of your eye the retina is covered in
photoreceptor cells called cones you
have around six million cone cells which
absorb light and pass it onto the
brain's visual cortex to be interpreted
as color this is a biological process
that's happening all the time you're
looking at this screen i'm looking at
this blue sky you're looking at me i'm
looking at you and oh this is a
connection my friends now your cone
cells at the back of your eye are
divided into three different types you
got red cone cells green cone cells and
blue cone cells rgb since you have three
types you are visually trichromatic so
you can walk around order your coffee
and say by the way you me we're
trichromatic some other animals for
example are tetrachromatic and can even
see within the uv wavelengths some birds
some fish which i'm sorry are cooler
than us that's a rad thing to do they
are superheroes we are measly
trichromats sit down folks because this
science is complicated but the red cone
optimal for perceiving the color red the
blue cone optimal for perceiving the
color blue and you guessed it the green
cone optimal for perceiving the color
grain but these cells work in
combination for you to see over 10
million different colors unless you're
12 percent of women who can see way more
than that more on that later but the
nature of these cone cells are what
create complementary colors that we
perceive as satisfying now a complement
is something that lacks a hole so for
example this circle is a complement of
this rectangle with the missing section
together they make a hole that's a whole
wh w-h-o-l-e not a hole like here here
here or a couple down here if i showed
you the ones down here we'd be on a
different tube site
according to the physics of light a
complementary color for your eye are two
colors that when combined produce white
light it's a law of nature it's
fascinating it's why we have
complementary colors for our eyes and it
has to do with how our cones work look
at this black and white image if we put
on the complementary colors of the
original picture and you stare at this
dot for a few seconds due to the
specific stimulus on your eye the
background we used and the perception of
your red green and blue cone receptors
when we put back this black and white
image you see the color i do this all
the time just for fun i'm like gosh dang
my eyes and brain are insane the reason
that this happens is because your eyes
are so sensitive to these wavelengths
that the cones become overused and
oversaturated when looking at the same
color the stimulus can start to spread
to other cones nearby and when the
stimulus is taken away the tired cones
and your visual cortex default to seeing
the complementary colors this is why we
love looking at complementary colors
beside each other they have energetic
reciprocity going back to this image
when staring at the green your green and
blue cone cells become fatigued but the
red isn't really being used in these
sections so when you switch to white
your brain reads these sections as red
the red cone start to trigger your brain
to see red it's all just about
perception it's wild because it's like
through these two little things that i'm
seeing everything and living my life
purple and gold are a reciprocal pair
that our trichromatic eyes and the eyes
of bees see very similarly golden rod
and purple asters grow together so that
bees find them attractive and this
increases their pollination these
flowers evolve to grow together to help
pollination with bees they weren't for
us but because of the energetic
reciprocity of our cones being similar
to that of bees we get to reap the
benefits of this energetic beauty when
looking at flowers when you see gold and
you see purple and it feels good thank
the bees when designing a room take a
look at this light complementary color
wheel if you focus on the complements of
each other throughout your room you're
going to be designing pleasing scenarios
for the cones of your eye this can
really help you make decisions about how
you're going to design your room just
think about the physiology of your
freaking brain now for men seeing color
can be more of an issue this is because
the genes that encode red and green
cones show high sequence homology on the
x chromosome so although gender and sex
can fall on a spectrum for the most part
people who identify as women have xx
chromosomes and people who identify as
men have x y chromosomes and it's this y
chromosome for people like me who have a
y chromosome we are more likely to not
be able to see red and green as well
this is why statistically men are much
more likely to be colorblind but on top
of this there's a lot of new research
but it is starting to be found out that
12 of women are actually tetrachromats
they have an extra cone and can see a
hundred times more color than the rest
of us i got into a rabbit hole of all
this research after being in nature and
just looking at all these beautiful
colors that were so soothing to my eye
my brain my perception and it almost
just was like what is beauty science has
a hard time defining beauty you know
beauty is in the eye of the beholder but
when you look at these complementary
light color wheels you start to realize
there are some things we can do in our
lives to better understand the physics
of light our eyes and our brain and
utilize this thinking to benefit our
lives essentially this is just a video
enticing you to get out there and of
course stop and smell the flowers but
also stop and look at those flowers
thank you to skillshare for sponsoring
this video and they are giving a free
one month premium membership of
skillshare to the first 1000 people who
clicked the link below so you got to
click it fast people skillshare is an
online learning community where you can
learn new things from the safety and
comfort of your own home my biggest
passion in life is learning and
skillshare is a huge asset to me i
cannot recommend skillshare enough this
video exists because i was spending more
time in nature because of a skillshare
course called urban nature journaling
seven days of artistic prompts
essentially what it taught me to do was
look around at nature in a new way it's
a beautiful course that honestly kind of
changed my life and my perspective of
the city that i live in it also got me
journaling which has made me feel better
essentially skillshare literally changed
my life again it's an online learning
community with tons of new classes great
for curious people who want to feel
inspired they're also always updating
new premium classes so depending on what
your interests are you can find
something for you skillshare is
dedicated to learning so lucky for you
for me there are no ads so again be one
of the first thousand people to click
the link below and you'll get a free
skillshare premium membership for one
month also by clicking this link you're
able to help our show here at asap
science thanks for watching and we'll
see you next week for a new science
video peace