The Physics Teacher, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 138–142, March 2004
©2004 American Association of Physics Teachers. All rights reserved.
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Complementary Colors

Two colors are said to be complementary if they produce white when they are mixed together. Which color is complementary to green? First switch on all three LEDs to obtain white. The complementary color to green is the color that remains when you switch off the green LED. It is magenta. In a similar way you can show that yellow is complementary to blue and cyan is complementary to red.


Previous section: Additive Color Mixing
Next section: The Two Yellows?
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