• Question: Why do darker colours absorb more energy than lighter colours? Asked by Anonymous Audience

    Asked by v4a833t to Saiful, Petra, Jenny, Jawwad, Iain, Bethan on 18 Jan 2017.
    • Photo: Bethan Charles

      Bethan Charles answered on 18 Jan 2017:

      Light is a wave, and waves carry energy.

      Light colours (like white) reflect light and so do not absorb most of the light’s energy.

      But dark colours (like black) absorb most of the light, therefore they also absorb most of the light’s energy.

    • Photo: Petra Cameron

      Petra Cameron answered on 19 Jan 2017:

      You need to turn this question around! Materials look ‘light’ because they are reflecting light back to your eye. So the light from the sun falls on the object and bounces back to your eye. This happens because the material is not absorbing the light. ‘Dark’ materials are absorbing the light and so they look ‘dark’ as there is little or no light left over to be bounced back to your eyes.

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