Primary question

[Gnisy]

I was confused about the three primary colours and I googled it. I ended up being more confused after going through the explanations. Can someone just please tell me what the three primary colours are?

[Loosehead]

red, green, blue

[SaxyJag]

Noooooooooooo ... Red, Yellow, Blue.
Red+Yellow = Orange
Yellow+Blue = Green
Blue+Red = Purple

[SaxyJag]

Red, Yellow, Blue are the primary colours of light.

[SaxyJag]

Mistake (how do I edit posts here): Red, GREEN, Blue = primary colours of light. Sorry 'bout that.

[potterfan3]

red, green and blue are the primary colours of light, red, yellow and blue are the primary colours of paint

[ugly_bob]

potterfan3 is correct

[mibn2cweus]

The human eye perceives COLOUR through three different types of cones that are each broadly tuned to one of three different colours:

RED GREEN BLUE

These bands overlap allowing us to see the colours in between. For instance YELLOW which lies between RED and GREEN in the visible light spectrum is perceived and interpreted as YELLOW because the RED and GREEN cones are both stimulated by this colour and so the brain interprets this simultaneous stimulation as YELLOW. These three types of cones allow us to percieve the complete visible colour spectrum from these primary colours.

[enigma69]

Primary colours for paint are Cyan Magenta and Yellow.

[mibn2cweus]

As SaxyJag says, "Red, Yellow, Blue" are the subtractive primary colours for mixing to get the secondary colours,
"Red+Yellow = Orange
Yellow+Blue = Green
Blue+Red = Purple"

As enigma69 says, "Primary colours for paint are Cyan Magenta and Yellow". These subtractive primary colours are better for mixing to get any colour we can see (along with black and white). These colours appear when mixing the additive primary colours Loosehead mentioned, "red, green, blue".
Red + Green = Yellow
Green + Blue = Cyan
Blue + Red = Magenta

So the 'right answer to the question "Can someone just please tell me what the three primary colours are?", is that everyone here is correct, it is a matter of context.

definition here

[wordyone]

The three primary colours are red, yellow and blue. All other colours are made up of combinations of two or more of these three colours.
In the paint and ink world the three main colours are cyan, magenta and yellow - which when you think about it are variations on red, yellow and blue!
I hope I have got this next bit roughly right!! -
Black is the effect of colour absorbing light.
White is the effect of colour reflecting light.