Color

Duff Man Jr.

Seen this question somewhere else (without an answer) and thought it was interesting;

If the color we see in an object is the result of the properties of the surface of that object that reflect a certain frequency of the electro magnetic spectrum, which is the real true color? Does color even exist as inherent property of the object or is It just the result of light?

Morbert

Duff Man Jr. wrote: »

Seen this question somewhere else (without an answer) and thought it was interesting;

If the color we see in an object is the result of the properties of the surface of that object that reflect a certain frequency of the electro magnetic spectrum, which is the real true color? Does color even exist as inherent property of the object or is It just the result of light?

It's the result of light. In the same sense that sound is the result of vibrations.

Morbert

ClutchIt wrote: »

Well as you say "the color we see in an object is the result of the properties of the surface of that object", then yes it is an inherent property of the object. It is also a result of light. It's both.

The true colour of an object I would assume is all light except the colour that we see. Which is kind of funny really.

A steel rod is not dyed at all and appears silver. So there is no colour at all in the steel because it reflects all white light. This makes sense because the steel has no dye added to it so why would it have an inherent colour!

Also colour is spelled with a U this side of the Atlantic! (sorry to be pedantic!)

Heh, while we do normally spell it with a U, I am a much bigger fan of American spelling, as it's clearer, and consistent with words like horror and terror.

Anyway, objects do not have any inherent colour, as the colour of an object emerges only after interactions between photons and the electrons of the object. At the very most, we can say things have an inherent electronic structure that will reflect light of a certain colour more readily. If there is no light, there is no colour. To us an analogy: A desk sounds different to a glass bottle when I tap them, but it would be incorrect to say they both inherently have sound.

An example of inherent colour would be the colour charge of quarks (though that is a very different use of the word 'colour').

FISMA

True, color is a perception, not a property of the object.

Color depends upon the relative motion between the source and the observer, which is not something that is normally changed in every day motion at normal speeds. This is similar to the Doppler effect changing pitch.

If the light was coming off of an object was say green, and you ran in the direction of the source, you would see more peaks per time - a greater frequency and the object would appear to change color from green -> blue -> violet. If you kept on running and speeding up, you would then stop seeing it and get sunburnt as the peaks became UV. You would want to slow down before you hit the X-ray region or gamma's :-)

Likewise, if you instead ran away from the green source, you would see yellow- orange - red, and infraRed. Soon you could detect the wave with a TV and/or radio.

In "reality" there is no color - out there, in the "real" world but "in-there," as in your mind. It's the way our brains are wired - a sensory perception.

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?

ClutchIt

Ok I understand now thanks.