Ahh yes. Nice thinking.Bertster7 wrote:
Course he's right.Kurazoo wrote:
I think he could be rightVolatile_Squirrel wrote:
The color of an object depends on what wavelengths of light it reflects. If it reflects all wavelengths, it is white. If it reflects none it is black.
edit: my answer is white.
A mirror is not white, because white is a combination or mixture of all colours, not a reflection of all colours. A white shirt appears to be white because it scatters and so mixes all the wavelengths striking it. This explains why you can't see a reflection of the world on the shirt.Volatile_Squirrel wrote:
The color of an object depends on what wavelengths of light it reflects. If it reflects all wavelengths, it is white. If it reflects none it is black.
edit: my answer is white.
Last edited by Vub (2007-01-19 17:05:00)
so... green?Vub wrote:
A mirror is not white, because white is a combination or mixture of all colours, not a reflection of all colours. A white shirt appears to be white because it scatters and so mixes all the wavelengths striking it. Hence you can't see a reflection of the world on the shirt.Volatile_Squirrel wrote:
The color of an object depends on what wavelengths of light it reflects. If it reflects all wavelengths, it is white. If it reflects none it is black.
edit: my answer is white.
A mirror however doesn't mix all the wavelengths. Instead, the mirror reflects all wavelengths at the same angle that they strike the mirror, hence you can see a reflection of the world in the mirror.
Therefore, since the colour of an object doesn't depend on the wavelengths it reflects, but rather scatters, then a mirror is exempt from a colour classification.
Because of perspective, anything a finite distance away from a mirror will appear smaller than it actually is. Hence, you would see on both mirrors an infinite procession of ever shrinking mirrors. Try this on an elevator which has mirrors on opposite walls.[TP~Bravo]Wiggy wrote:
No idea...
But what do you see if you put 2 mirrors precisely parallel to each other ... if there is nothing in between the mirrors what would be seen?
Wow thanks, I'm glad you have mastered clipboard. Consider your karma -1 whenever I see it it my eyes.Superslim wrote:
Now that is a question I never would have thought of!
First lets define what color is. What we call white light is actually made up of lots of different colors of light, literally all the colors of the rainbow. It has been known for hundreds of years that light can behave like a wave. You can think of it like a series of ripples, with a height to each ripple and a distance between the incoming ripples (called the wavelength). The color of light is determined by the wavelength: the long wavelengths make red light, somewhat shorter makes yellow, shorter even than that makes blue.
Suppose you are wearing a red shirt. That means that of all the colors of light hitting the shirt, they all get absorbed by the shirt except for red. The red light gets reflected by the shirt and into your eye. So the color of an object depends on what wavelengths of light it reflects. If it reflects all wavelengths, we say it is white. If it reflects none it is black.
A perfect mirror does actually reflect all light hitting it. So why doesn't it look white? It's because a mirror reflects light in a coherent manner; that is, the light is reflected back from the mirror depending on how the light came in. A white shirt just reflects light back everywhere in all directions. Even if red and blue light hit the shirt coming from the same direction, they may get scattered in different directions. A mirror, on the other hand, reflects the blue and red light in the same direction, and so the mirror actually builds an image of the source of the light.
So you can think of a mirror as being white, since it reflects all colors, but a smart kind of white. I guess you could say that a mirror is simply the color of whatever light source it sees!
Im going to have to disagree...You would be able to see a perfect mirror because it directing the photons back @ you. So you will see the mirror. The point of the bleeding thing is to send the photon which = light which = the picture you see in your retina. Thats why there is something there , i.e. the silver to help that reflection because glass alone doesn't refract the light properly. So a mirror is silver because the silver has been decided the best color to reflect the light with no change in the wavelength to give you a clear picture.RoosterCantrell wrote:
That's my vote. A mirror does what it does reflect light. Light of various wavelengths, as in colors. Reflection is an aspect of the properties of light energy, not a color. Now, if you were to look at the products that go into what makes a mirror, you oculd go that route. However, Since you are Seeing a reflection of you in a mirror, the colors are reflected light. Asking what color a mirror is is almost asking what PURE H20 water tastes like.stkhoplite wrote:
A perfect mirror itself cannot be seen, and does not reflect a colour of its own. A mirror can only be detected by its imperfections and the fact that we can now see behind us. A mirror is colourless.
You'd have to have 1 interrigation window where you're behind it and then another mirror parallel to it. Just because it'd be the only way you can get the perfect angle to see what it would look like. I would also like to see what it ends up looking like.[TP~Bravo]Wiggy wrote:
No idea...
But what do you see if you put 2 mirrors precisely parallel to each other ... if there is nothing in between the mirrors what would be seen?
Last edited by Vub (2007-01-20 00:06:37)
White is the result of all the wavelengths of light being "added" together, something is white because it doesn't absorb any wavelength of light. Eg. a piece of paper looks white because it scatters light in all directions. A mirror only scatters light such that the angle of incidence = the angle of reflection. Only certain objects can reflect light that way.Volatile_Squirrel wrote:
The color of an object depends on what wavelengths of light it reflects. If it reflects all wavelengths, it is white. If it reflects none it is black.
edit: my answer is white.