eli5 How does an object which reflects only infrared light look like

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If there in an object which reflects only the infrared portion of light, how would it look like?

In: Physics

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

To the human eye, it would look something like Vantablack. (Theoretically, it would be even blacker than that.) It would be just look as black as black can possibly be.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If an object only reflects IR and absorbed visible light, then it would appear black to a human looking at it.

With an IR camera it’d light up on the screen.

Anonymous 0 Comments

We already kinda have examples of this in everyday life, albeit with transmission rather than reflection. A lot of remote controls for TV/DVD/etc. use an LED that blinks in infrared to transmit their commands. A lot of modern remotes will just have the LED exposed, but a lot of older ones would hide the LED behind a plastic panel that allowed infrared light through and little else. Those plastic panels looked very dark red, almost black.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Either black or transparent depending on if it absorbs or transmits visible light. You can have glass and plastics which reflect infrared light for example.