color: The Visible Spectrum

Since the colors that compose sunlight or white light have different wavelengths, the speed at which they travel through a medium such as glass differs; red light, having the longest wavelength, travels more rapidly through glass than blue light, which has a shorter wavelength. Therefore, when white light passes through a glass prism, it is separated into a band of colors called a spectrum. The colors of the visible spectrum, called the elementary colors, are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet (in that order).

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Symbolic Uses of Color
• Properties of Colors
• Subtractive Colors
• Additive Colors
• Apparent Color of Objects
• The Visible Spectrum
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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