So theres molecules...what exactly gives them their different colours??
Answer:
heat
particles called pigments in the cells give color
There's no suc thing as colour. Light works across a spectrum of frequencies, and when it bounces off something, each frequency is diffused to a different degree. Our eyes can tell which frequencies are less diffused, and interprets that as a colour.
Put simply: if you look at a piece of blue cardboard, what actually happens is that the light, containing all of the available colours, breaks up when it hits the cardboard. The other colours get scattered, but the blue light is still focused when it reaches your eyes, so you see the cardboard as blue.
So can the cardboard be said to really be blue? That's a question for the philosophy section
the color is what remains when the molecules absorb the light. It's like this, each atom (and electron) vibrates and spins at a certain frequency.
Through some complex math (which I will not understand I imagine) the wavelength of light (color) and the position of the electrons as well as the amount of protons determine the color of each kind of atom and molecule. There is actually a pattern, but it's not obvious. You can figure out which simple molecules are made up of their basic atoms, but it's not easy from there.
Color is nothing more than just what our eyes see between infrared and ultraviolet energy. The reflection of the light stimulates our eyes and brain in such a way as to allow us to perceive the "color".
Molecules can do certain things, like vibrate, rotate, and move around. If you had a slinky you could vibrate it or move it, or rotate it, same thing. Well it takes certain specific amounts of energy to do those things, so when a light wave with the exact amount of energy hits the molecule, the light gets absorbed and the molecule rotates. The light that does not get absorbed either transmits through, or reflects back. It is the combination of the reflected light rays that give an object it's color.
Conjugation is the key word. The combination of single and double bonds through a molecule in a particular order will end up creating a particular energy. This energy interacts with light energy which causes another energy which ultimately reacts with chemicals in your eyes in the rods and cones.
This is one of the most complex topics of biophysics. Couple of key terms: HOMO, LUMO, beta-carotene reaction.
You'll have to do a little more investigation yourself, but this should provide the basis.
The interaction of light with molecules that gives rise to the color that we see involves the excitation of electrons in the molecules to higher energy levels. For each molecule, depending on its shape and composition, there are only certain frequencies of light that the molecule can absorb. If a substance absorbs light of a certain frequency, all the colors that weren't absorbed tend to be reflected back. Typically, the colors that you see come from this phenomenon.
To estimate what color you will see based on what colors of light are absorbed, you can use an artist's color wheel. For example, if a substance absorbs violet light, what you see will be the color opposite violet on the color wheel; in this case, yellow.
Oh, and molecular vibrations and rotations are not of sufficiently high enough energy to interact with light in the visible spectrum. Those correspond to infrared and microwave frequencies, respectively.
When light(white light like sunlight) falls on a substance then colour of certain wavelength is absorbed by the substance and emit the complementry colour of certain wavelenght which lie in the visible region(VIBGYOR). Thats why things appear coloured to us. There is a table at higher classes in which wavelength r given and also there complementry colours r also given.
molecules absorb certain spectrum fractions of visable light as the electrons bounce around back and forward in to and from higher and lower energy orbitals
when they do this certain light fractions are absorbed and those that aren't (are allowed to pass through) is the colour that we see
e.g. if red is absorbed we'll see a more blue/green colour
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