If red, blue, and yellow are the primary colors, why do computers use red, blue and green?

Question

This has been bugging me for ages.

Answer 1

Because people make the mistake that colors and pigments are the same thing.  Color refers to light, pigments to materials.  The primary pigments are red, blue, and yellow.  The primary COLORS are red, blue, and green.

Answer 2

Because red, blue, and yellow is a subtractive color model. That means you start w/ white light and different wavelengths are subtracted from it to show various colors. The subtractive color model suitably explains printed media, paintings, posters, etc, where light is reflected onto some media and the most wavelengths are absorbed except certain ones to be reflected to our eyes (ie, a red apple absorbs almost everything except red).

Red blue green is an additive color model. That means that you start w/ blank (black), but adding different wavelengths will create various colors. So this is good for light emitted from a source to our eyes, such as displays (no blue, green, and light red make yellow).