Colour psychology is a pretty fascinating field. Take the colour red as an example. Synonymous with romance and passion, it also carries connotations of danger and death. In certain cultures, it’s also closely tied to prosperity and luck. Sunny yellow can exude happiness and optimism, but also suggest deception. To some, black exudes elegance and sophistication, while also being closely associated with death, mourning, and evil. Keen to upgrade your knowledge of the colour spectrum? Below, we’ve singled out five fun facts to fine-tune your knowledge of the colour wheel.

Isaac Newton created the first colour wheel

Whether you’re putting together a killer outfit or deciding on a dream design scheme for a new interior, you’ve probably turned to a colour wheel at least once in your life. But who created the first colour wheel? The answer will probably surprise you. Alongside his theory of gravity and contributions to mathematics, it’s English polymath Isaac Newton who is often credited with producing the original colour wheel back in 1666. After experimenting with how light reflected off prisms, Newton attributed each visible colour to a different musical note, ultimately developing a rotating disk to see how individual colours interacted with each other. The next time you’re spinning the wheel to find a complementary colour for a signature shade, take a moment to thank Newton.

How colour psychology and casinos collide

Colour plays a key role in casino design. Whether you’re enjoying a wager on casino games online or placing a wager on the outcome of a roulette spin at your local establishment, you’ve probably let colour lead your way when making a bet before. Colours like red are a staple of the casino world. It’s a bold, assertive colour that tends to encourage an indecisive gambler into making a bet and taking bigger risks. In the online sector, luxurious gold can help set a game apart from the competition, showcasing exclusivity and cementing the idea of larger payouts. Meanwhile, green has connotations of luck, inviting an air of superstition into outcomes that are ultimately a game of chance.

Red is the first colour we register after birth

It’s a common misconception that babies are born colourblind. However, after birth, humans do suffer from limited colour vision. Bright colours are more easily visible than duller ones, while high-contrast colours are more readily discernible. By the age of a few weeks, babies are finally able to discern colours more decisively, with red being the first shade we hone in on. By the age of around five months, most of us are able to enjoy the full colour spectrum in all its glory.

There’s a reason why purple’s reserved for royalty

Purple has long been synonymous with royalty, with this regal colour being sported by rulers dating back thousands of years. The reason for this was the sheer difficulty involved in obtaining the dye responsible for creating the colour purple. Historically, the dye used to produce Tyrian purple was sourced from the secretions of several species of sea snails. Not only was this secretion difficult and time-intensive to obtain, but significant amounts were required to produce even the smallest amount of purple dye. This scarcity meant that purple remained the preserve of royalty and the elite for centuries, with the first synthetic dyes only arriving in the 1850s. In 1856, a young English chemist accidentally created Perkin’s Purple, a shade more closely associated with the colour mauve. While purple still maintains its regal allure to this very day, it’s now far more commonplace and readily accessible.

Violet is the rarest colour in nature

In the natural world, the colour green is king. It lies slap bang in the middle of the visible spectrum and is intrinsic to photosynthesis, the basis for most life on Earth. Colours like blue, with its short wavelength, are more likely to be absorbed by pigments, rather than reflect them, which is why we see less of them in nature. Rarer still is violet, with an even shorter wavelength and higher frequency than blue, pushing it to the extremes of the visible light spectrum. Creating the pigments for this colour is an energy-intensive process, which is why so few animals do. No mammals produce violet as a pigment, with only a handful of insects, birds, and marine animals doing so.