I understand the underlying basic concept of colours from my Biology/Chemistry classes. “Things” absorb some wavelengths, or emit other wavelengths (something like that).
But like, why and how? For instance, what makes a wood chair white and a wood table red? Aren’t both atom’s composition the same? How can they emit different colors at all?
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You are correct that every carbon atom is identical to every other carbon atom (except isotopes), but what changes is how those atoms are attached toger forming molecules. You can have molecules composed of the exact same atoms, and when they are attached together differently they show different properties. One famous example of this is the molecule that gives us the flavor of spearmint, and the molecule that gives us the flavor of carroway seeds. These molecules are what we call enantiomers, meaning the only differ by the way the molecule is oriented in 3-D space.
Enantiomers exhibit a property called handedness, which we call because of its similarity to how your left hand differs from your right hand. If you have ever tried to put your left glove on your right hand, you know from experience that there is no way you can turn tour hand to make it fit the glove. This is because your hands are enantiomers of each other!
Molecular enantiomers have a special property in that they both have the same, but opposite effect on polarized light. The details of this are a bit complicated for ELI5, but the point is that small changes in molecular arrangements change the way a molecule interacts with light.
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