How is it possible that certain colours absorb heat and others reflect it? They are just ‘colours’?
Why if you are wearing black pants, you get warm, but with white, less so – even if it’s the same material?
In: 3
The colour isn’t “just” a colour. It’s a colour because that is the light reflecting back at you.
Imagine a wall 2m x 2m and we’re gonna throw a bunch of different sized balls at it. If we put a 1m x 1m hole in it, most of the balls are going to go through with very few coming back to us for a second throw; this is black. If we split that 1m x 1m hole into a hundred 10cm x 10cm holes we have the same ratio of hole to wall [3m^2 of wall and 1m^2 of hole] but now the volleyballs, basketballs, and footballs bounce back to us while most of the golf balls, baseballs, and ping pong balls go through; this is a colour. If we split the hole up into ten thousand 1cm x 1cm holes, then we still have the same ratio of hole to wall, but now almost everything bounces back; this is white.
This is a physical example rather than an electrochemical example but the very basic principle is the same. The ‘material’ of the clothes has not changed but the ‘colour’ you see is just a certain arrangement of ‘holes’. Now go enjoy your basketball-coloured pants.
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