Color Theory: Simultaneous Contrast

Design 200 is a intro class to design, exploring all fields of design and every aspect, in a short amount of time.

My first real post will be about understanding color theory further, with the topic of simultaneous  contrast. This interested me the most when going over color theory, mainly because the basic information on color I have already learned and also being interested in physics, the reason why this happens interests me the most.

A good article I found about the subject is found here: http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/contrast.html , I encourage you to go through it, there are some interesting interactions throughout this article showing simultaneous contrast.

Now for my novice explanation of why this occurs from a physics perspective:
My understanding of this is different than I thought. From what I've learned, the reason why our eye perceives the difference in color is due from the cones in your eye taking in too much of one color and therefore not showing the true color of another color that is overlapping the other. This affects the Hue, Saturation and value of the color you are looking at. Since your cones can only absorb a certain amount of light they will be "fatigued" and not be able to send the correct information to your brain. So this allows only light besides the fatigued cone to be then perceived, or in the amount your eye is then capable of perceiving.

I originally thought that light being a wave, that it was interfering with neighboring colors, but thinking about and reading the above article, I realized that this is not true. Though light does interfere with itself, it doesn't seem to be the effect of simultaneous contrast, at least to amount that is known. It is interesting with whether or not interference does have any effect at all to our perception, might be fun to experiment with that idea.

(corrected my original post)

(http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/Wavelengths_for_Colors.html) source about wavelengths
(http://astro1.panet.utoledo.edu/~lsa/_color/27_pattern.htm) another source

I would like to better mathematically describe this, but due to time...I'm late for class (sorry Gabe)

-amorgan