Young–Helmholtz theory

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The Young–Helmholtz theory (proposed in the 19th century by Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz) is a theory of trichromatic color vision – the manner in which the photoreceptors in the eyes of humans and other primates work to enable color vision.

In 1802, Young postulated the existence of three types of photoreceptors (now known as cone cells) in the eye, each of which was sensitive to a particular spectrum of the visible light.

Hermann von Helmholtz developed the theory further in 1850: that the three types of cone photoreceptors could be classified as short-preferring (blue), middle-preferring (green), and long-preferring (red), according to their response to the wavelengths of light striking the retina. The relative strengths of the signals detected by the three types of cones are interpreted by the brain as a visible color.

The theory was proved over a century later in a 1983 experiment by Dartnall, Bowmaker, and Mollon, when microspectrophotopic readings of single eye cone cells were obtained.^[1]

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