Pink is not a color?

A pink-less rainbow

 Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red are all the colors from the rainbow we are lucky to see some times. We are learned that these are also the colors from our visible light spectrum, which ranges from  about 360 to 780 nm. Before violet there is ultra violet and after red there is infra-red. So then where is the pink? Indeed, it isn’t there. No single wavelength of light appears pink. It’s such a mystery color because it’s a mixture of violet and red, colors from opposite ends of the visible light spectrum. Which is theoretically impossible right?

The real problem starts when you try to roll up the rainbow to make a color wheel, there will be a gap between red and violet. That’s where all of the rest of the light in the universe is supposed to go, the ultra violet and infra-red. But since we can’t see those colors, and red and violet just don’t really fade into each other, we replace all the hidden colors with pink.

But then, the color wheel is a model of perception, not a map of the spectrum.

But on the other hand, what defines a color? Our mind has learned to see that mix of colors and call it Pink. Just as we call the lack of color black and all visible colors together white. And greens that are tinted red even though their colors aren’t next to each other in the visible light spectrum we can recognize, and more of these colors.  

Thus, let’s not count out pink and just call it a color. Eventhough I think we might need to call it minus green, since pink is really what is left of colors if you make green.