Basically, every object like, say, this rather nice cherry tomato, is made of, or covered with a material with certain qualities. Some of those qualities determine what wavelengths of light (the reflectance spectrum - found that word somewhere) will bounce off it, and consequently hit your retina. Your brain will then take those wavelengths and interpret them as a particular colour, usually pretty consistently - that's why your favourite red woolly jumper pretty much always looks red to you, though some of my t-shirts seem to mysteriously change colour during the month.

The colour red has a wavelength of about 650nm (nanometres - a measure which is a like a metre, but much, much smaller). Once you get up into the 700nm range, the human eye can’t even see it anymore - that’s infrared. Look out for www.ItsGottaBeInfraRed, if you can find it...

Well, I hope that in-depth explanation cleared up some of your doubts about the color red. If this has also somehow diminished your sense of wonder, worry not, it's probably nonsense anyway! Browse through the categories here on It's Gotta Be Red for a never-ending voyage of discovery through the color that at least 12% of the world’s population cite as their favourite!!

Alternative theories:

• the color red was discovered by the Chinese as early as 2 BC
• the colour red only reached the West by chance in 1963, when a Portuguese scientist isolated the color from a mix of Slightly Pinkish and Almost Black
• the tastiest jelly babies are thought to be the red ones