Magenta

Magenta is a purplish-pink colour. There is no single wavelength of light that is magenta: the brain invents it when it sees red and blue light together, and nobody has had the heart to tell it.^[1]

Because it has no wavelength, magenta cannot be measured with a spectrometer, only with a person, who is far less accurate but far more confident.

Existence

Physicists maintain that magenta is not on the spectrum. Painters maintain that they have three tubes of it. A joint conference in 1962 resolved the matter by agreeing that magenta does not exist but is available in most art shops.^[2]

Researchers who tried to see magenta by looking at red and then at blue, one after the other, reported seeing red and then blue, and were sent home early.

Printing

Magenta is one of the four inks used in colour printing, along with cyan, yellow and black. When a printer runs out of magenta, its photographs turn faintly green, and every face in them looks as though it has eaten something unwise.^[3]

Name

The colour is named after the town of Magenta in northern Italy. The town is not magenta. Visitors who expected otherwise are offered a postcard, which is.

See also

• Rain – makes rainbows, which do not include magenta
• Sun – supplies the light the brain then improvises with

References

1. Fuchs, I. (1962). It Isn't There. Spectrum Press. p. 1.
2. Hue, H. (2008). “Three Tubes of Nothing”. Art Supply Review 3.
3. Cyan, C. (1999). Out of Ink. Cartridge Books.