Re:The Difference Between ‘Violet’ and ‘Purple’ (2015)
by Bendingo on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @11:04PM
(#19560427)
The first sentence in the wikipedia article says:
"A blacklight [...] emits long-wave (UV-A) ultraviolet light [...]."
Why does it say "long-wave" when UV is short-wavelength ?
Re:The Difference Between ‘Violet’ and ‘Purple’ (2015)
by OscarCunningham on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @01:51AM
(#19561082)
Because the light that blacklights emit is on the longer end of the possible UV wavelengths. This is what the UV-A means. There are also UV-B and UV-C with shorter wavelengths.
In normal circumstances (say, daylight surroundings), a moderate amount of light at very short wavelengths won’t look like much of anything at all, bluish–black, because the cone cells (especially L and M cones which determine red–green response) will be getting much more stimulus from other wavelengths.
If you go to a completely dark room, let your eyes adapt, and look at a blacklight, then you are right that you are at that point going to see it looking purplish because the L cones are stimulated a bit more than the M cones for those wavelengths, and other wavelengths are entirely absent. But this is a really weird edge case for vision.