Found the following quite interesting: 
A beam of white light is made up of all the colours in the spectrum. The range extends from red through to violet, with orange, yellow, green and blue in between. But there is one colour that is notable by its absence. Pink (or magenta, to use its official name) simply isn’t there. But if pink isn’t in the light spectrum, how come we can see it?
The colours present in the white light spectrum are each of a single wave length. Pink, peach, ochre, mauve, sandstone beige, harvest wheat and the rest of the Dulux swatch board all exist because they are blends of different wavelenghts which our brains interpret as single colour.
I’d have to call that violet - but lets ask the ladies around here ?
But if pink isn’t in the light spectrum, how come we can see it?That sounds a lot like "If it isn't in the bible, how can we believe it?". :)
http://personal.uncc.edu/lagaro/cwg/color/intro_color.html
Maybe months too late? : There’s a difference in colour observation, depending whether the light(white) is reflected or refracted. The absorbed light in the case of reflected white light is then subtracted (in varying quanta) resulting in weird colours.
Conclusion: Magenta is a colour because we see it…like “the taste of the pudding.…”
Barryl
