spektriväriä

Spektriväriä, meaning "spectrum color" in Finnish, refers to any color that is part of the visible light spectrum. This spectrum is a continuous range of electromagnetic radiation that the human eye can perceive. The colors are ordered by their wavelength, with red having the longest wavelength and violet the shortest.

The most commonly recognized order of these colors is the rainbow sequence: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, often remembered by the acronym ROY G BIV. Each of these colors corresponds to a specific range of wavelengths. For instance, red light has wavelengths roughly between 620 and 750 nanometers, while violet light has wavelengths between 380 and 450 nanometers.

When white light, such as sunlight, passes through a prism or is refracted by water droplets (creating a rainbow), it splits into its constituent spektriväriä. This phenomenon, called dispersion, occurs because different wavelengths of light are bent at slightly different angles.

Objects appear to have a certain spektriväriä because they absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others. The color we see is the combination of the wavelengths that are reflected. For example, a red apple appears red because it absorbs most of the wavelengths of white light and reflects primarily red wavelengths. Conversely, a black object absorbs almost all visible light, and a white object reflects almost all of it. The concept of spektriväriä is fundamental to understanding color perception and the physics of light.