How does matter (on an atomic scale) get its color?
In: 17
Visible light comes in different wavelengths, which refers to the lengths between two consecutive peaks on that squiggly graph you’ve probably seen before. Matter will absorb some wavelengths and not others. What you think of as “color” is what your brain perceives when the non-absorbed wavelengths bounce off of that object and hit your retina, with different wavelengths corresponding to different colors. Whether or not a wavelength is absorbed is dependent on the vibrational frequency of the atoms comprising the object.
Latest Answers