Color - Light And Color, Rainbows, Refraction: The Bending Of Light, Diffraction And Interference, Transparent, Translucent, And Opaque
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Color is a complex and fascinating subject. Several fields of science are involved in explaining the phenomenon of color. The physics of light, the chemistry of colorants, the psychology and physiology of human emotion are all related to color. Since the beginning of history, people of all cultures have tried to explain why there is light and why we see colors. Some people have regarded color with the same mixture of fear, reverence, and curiosity with which they viewed other natural phenomena. In recent years scientists, artists, and other scholars have offered interpretations of the sun, light, and color differences.
Color perception plays an important role in our lives and enhances the quality of life. This influences what we eat and wear. Colors help us to understand and appreciate the beauty of sunrise and sunset, the artistry of paintings, and the beauty of a bird's plumage. Because the sun rises above the horizon in the east, it gives light and color to our world. As the sun sets to the west, it gradually allows darkness to set in. Without the sun we would not be able to distinguish colors. The energy of sunlight warms the earth, making life possible; otherwise, there would be no plants to provide food. We are fortunate to have light as an essential part of our planet.
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Colors are dependent on light, the primary source of which is sunlight. It is difficult to know what light really is, but we can observe its effects. An object appears colored because of the way it interacts with light. A thin line of light is called a ray; a beam is made up of many rays of light. Light is a form of energy that travels in waves. Light travels silently over long distances at a spee…
Refraction is the bending of a light ray as it passes at an angle from one transparent medium to another. As a beam of light enters glass at an angle, it is refracted or bent. The part of the light beam that strikes the glass is slowed down, causing the entire beam to bend. The more sharply the beam bends, the more it is slowed down. Each color has a different wavelength, and it bends differently …
Similar colors can be seen in a thin film of oil, in broken glass and on the vivid wings of butterflies and other insects. Scientists explain this process by the terms, diffraction and interference. Diffraction and refraction both refer to the bending of light. Diffraction is the slight bending of light away from its straight line of travel when it encounters the edge of an object in its path. Thi…
Materials like air, water, and clear glass are called transparent. When light encounters transparent materials, almost all of it passes directly through them. Glass, for example, is transparent to all visible light. The color of a transparent object depends on the color of light it transmits. If green light passes through a transparent object, the emerging light is green; similarly if red light pa…
We do not actually see colors. What we see as color is the effect of light shining on an object. When white light shines on an object it may be reflected, absorbed, or transmitted. Glass transmits most of the light that comes into contact with it, thus it appears colorless. Snow reflects all of the light and appears white. A black cloth absorbs all light, and so appears black. A red piece of paper…
Scientists today are not sure how we understand and see color. What we call color depends on the effects of light waves on receptors in the eye's retina. The currently accepted scientific theory is that there are three types of cones in the eye. One of these is sensitive to the short blue light waves; it responds to blue light more than to light of any other color. A second type of cone res…
There are three main characteristics for understanding variations in color. These are hue, saturation, and intensity or brightness. Hue represents the observable visual difference between two wavelengths of color. Saturation refers to the richness or strength of color. When a beam of red light is projected from the spectrum onto a white screen, the color is seen as saturated. All of the light that…
Color fills our world with beauty. We delight in the golden yellow leaves of Autumn and the beauty of Spring flowers. Color can serve as a means of communication, to indicate different teams in sports, or, as in traffic lights, to instruct drivers when to stop and go. Manufacturers, artists, and painters use different methods to produce colors in various objects and materials. The process of mixin…
All color is derived from two types of light mixture, an additive and a subtractive process. Both additive and subtractive mixtures are equally important to color design and perception. The additive and subtractive elements are related but different. In a subtractive process, blended colors subtract from white light the colors that they cannot reflect. Subtractive light mixtures occur when there i…
Three colorants that can be mixed in different combinations to produce several other colors are the primary colorants. In mixing red, green, and blue paint the result will be a muddy dark brown. Red and green paint do not combine to form yellow as do red and green light. The mixing of paints and dyes is entirely different from the mixing of colored light. By 1730, a German engraver named J. C. LeB…
Color influences many of our daily decisions, consciously or unconsciously from what we eat and what we wear. Color enhances the quality of our lives, it helps us to fully appreciate the beauty of colors. Colors are also an important function of the psychology and physiology of human sensation. Even before the ancient civilizations in prehistoric times, color symbolism was already in use. Differen…
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