Young-Helmholtz theory.
The theory of human colour vision which states that our retinas are trichromatic. That is, the image receptors in our eyes contain three separate types of colour-sensing cells which detect red, green and blue light.
The theory was devised in the 1800s by English physician Thomas Young (1773-1829) and extended by German physician and mathematician Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821-1894). Young and von Helmholtz based the theory on simple visual experiments on humans - noting the different colour ranges which people with different types of colour-blindness cannot see, etc. However it wasn’t until the later part of the 20th century that the theory was apparently proved biologically. Human eyes do indeed have three different types of cone cells, which are the cells capable of detecting colour information.
cf. RGB, trichromatic.
Entry last updated 2002-05-08. Term 1322 of 1487.
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