How do our eyes perceive color from different wavelengths of light?

Our eyes turn different colors into pictures by using special cells that react to light’s wavelengths, like how a radio picks up different songs from different stations.

Imagine you have a toy radio, and each station plays a different kind of music, some are soft lullabies, others are loud rock songs. Your eyes work sort of like that radio. Light comes in as invisible waves, and each color is like a different song on the radio, red is one song, blue is another, and so on.

Inside your eyes are tiny cells called cones, which are like little radios listening to specific songs (or colors). When light hits your eye, these cones “tune in” to their favorite color. If you're looking at a red apple, the cone that likes red sends a message to your brain saying, “I see red!” And if there’s green grass nearby, another cone will say, “I see green!”

Your brain then mixes these messages together like mixing paint. If you look at something with both red and blue light, your brain might think it's purple, just like how mixing red and blue crayons gives you a new color!