If Black is when an object absorbs all the color and White reflects all the color. How about Grey, what colors does it absorb and reflect to show it being Grey?

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If Black is when an object absorbs all the color and White reflects all the color. How about Grey, what colors does it absorb and reflect to show it being Grey?

In: Physics

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Colour isn’t just whether or not light of any given wavelength is absorbed, it’s also about how much of that wavelength is absorbed. When light hits a thing, there’s a chance each photon will be absorbed or reflected, and that chance depends on the wavelength. If you have a bright red object for example, that might reflect 5% of green and blue wavelengths, but 90-95% of red wavelengths. There’s still a lot of light being reflected, but its mostly red light. A dark red object meanwhile might reflect the same 5% of blue and green light, but only 25% of red light. It’s still predominantly red, but there’s a lot less total light being reflected, so on the whole it looks darker. With grey, you’ve got the same proportion of each wavelength being reflected, but the amount is varying – a pale grey might reflect 80% of each colour, where a dark grey only reflects 20%.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Depending on the amount of grey, it will absorb a percentage of each colour of light, and reflect a percentage.