Understanding Colour: Is It an Illusion?

A look at the science of colour and the human perception of it. Join Dr Peter Wellings on a journey of discovery in which he’ll answer some fascinating questions about the colourful world that we perceive.

Colour is all around us. It is something that we take for granted. We know much about coloured pigments and how to produce colour. We use colour in hundreds of different ways. But few of us know much about how we perceive colour or in other words how and why we see colour the way we do. What is colour?

How many colours do we see? How is colour processed by our visual systems? Are there colours we don’t see? Do we all see the same colours? Do we ever see in the ultraviolet? Do animals see colours as we do? These are some of the questions Dr Wellings will address. His talk will be a colourful scientific presentation illustrated by the art of Claude Monet and Monet’s garden at Giverny.

Dr Peter Wellings is a retired Wellington ophthalmologist with a special interest in colour vision. He has been an examiner in Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery and in Visual Physiology, both in Australia and New Zealand, for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists.