[ Name ][ Date ]

Color

Answer the following on your own paper1. What is a wavelength?2. What kinds of light make up the electromagnetic

spectrum? (in order from largest to smallest wavelength)

3. What tool may we use to separate white light into the rainbow spectrum of colors?

4. How might this explain how rainbows form in the sky?5. If you combine all the colors of a rainbow, what do

you get?6. Red paint absorbs all the colors, but reflects what

color of light?7. If you mix all the colors of paint together, what color

do you get? Explain.8. Why does something black have a slightly higher

temperature than something white?9. Why is the sky blue?10.If black objects absorb all colors, then what do white

objects do?11.Why do soap bubbles appear to have many colors in

them?

In the diagrams below, draw ray diagrams for...

Remember that the electromagnetic spectrum is made of many types of light. Only a small section of it is visible.

Light travels at ~300,000 km/s and can travel through both empty space and objects.

Radio waves have the largest wavelength of the spectrum and gamma have the smallest. (Red Martians…)

In the visible spectrum, red has the largest wavelength and violet has the smallest (ROYGBIV)

In the visible spectrum, the primary colors are :

Green, Blue and Red.

Our eyes and brains combine these colors to make up allthe other colors that we are able to see.

Green, blue and red cone receptors in the back of our eyes interpret and mix colors that we see. Different organisms have different types of receptors.

The primary colors of light combine to make the other color wavelengths that we are able to perceive.

green

yellowcyan

redblue

white

magenta

Light wavelengths can combine to make new colors, but the same doesn’t always happen in dyes/paint.

Dyes absorb color, so when two dyes are mixed even more colors are absorbed. In dyes, all colors added together make black. In light, all colors make white.

Light filters are used to absorb some wavelengths of light and let others pass through. This process is called transmission.

What would a green object look like under a red light? What would a white object look like under a green light? What would a black object look like under yellow light?

Light Objectives

Video Links

How do we see color:http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-we-see-color-colm-kelleher

Color Mixing:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPPYGJjKVco