What determines what light is reflected back creating colors? I know color is reflected light, but what determines that? Does it have to doing with

Question

The frequency of the electrons? Idk

In: Physics

Answer 1

There is two pretty separate things.

One is purely physical, if the surface of something has many small features it just physically interacts with the light waves. If the surface has lots of small holes the light waves bigger than the holes and the ones smaller than the holes will reflect different ways and amounts. Butterfly wings are often shiney and colorful because they have tiny scales that reflect some colors to the sides and colors like blue outward.

The other effect is that the way things reflect is an atom absorbs it and then releases it back in the other direction. The wavelength of the light depends on what the electrons are doing and different configurations will put out higher or lower frequencies when you push energy into them