Light and Color - Mission LC3 Detailed Help


Black is not really a color. Rather, black can be considered to be ____.


 

Visible Light
Light is a form of electromagnetic (EM) radiation. The human eye is sensitive to a narrow range of frequencies within the enormous range that the EM spectrum spans. Visible light itself is a spectrum of frequencies that is often referred to as ROYGBIV. Objects that appear white are reflecting visible light. The whiteness of such light is most often attributed to the presence of all the frequencies of the visible light. ROYGBIV, when present together, results in white light. 


 
If you walk into a closet and turn the lights off, everything around you is black. Why? Because there is no light in the closet. Without light, the so-called blue jeans cannot reflect blue light to your eyes. Without light, the red and green basketball jersey cannot reflect red and green light to your eye. Your colorful wardrobe is now totally black. Black is the absence of all the colors of the visible light spectrum.