What makes white gold white and yellow gold yellow?

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What makes white gold white and yellow gold yellow?

In: Chemistry

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The electrons in gold move at relativistic (i.e. a significant portion of the speed of light) speeds. As such the wavelengths of light absorbs shift (contract) resulting in reflecting gold/yellow parts of the visible spectrum.

Sorry, not really an ELI5 explanation but couldn’t really think how to simplyfy it.

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