In: Physics
While the human eye responds to light with wavelengths up to about 750 nm, it is hard to distinguish the color of different wavelengths between 650 and 700 nm. Why?
There are two types of photoreceptors in the human retina, rods and cones.
Rods are responsible for vision at low light levels. They do not mediate color vision, and have a low spatial acuity.
Cones are active at higher light levels, are capable of color vision and are responsible for high spatial acuity. The central fovea is populated exclusively by cones. There are 3 types of cones which we will refer to as the short-wavelength sensitive cones, the middle-wavelength sensitive cones and the long-wavelength sensitive cones or S-cone, M-cones, and L-cones for short.
Sensitivity of 3 types of cones to the light of different wavelength in visible light is given in the following figure.
From the figure we can see all 3 types of cones are very less sensetive in the wavelength range 650-700 nm.Hence it is hard to distinguish the color of different wavelengths between 650 and 700 nm