When I was lad, the barber would offer you ‘something for the weekend?’ (He didn’t offer this to me, you understand, I was too young.) Here’s a little thought for the weekend:
If a black coloured object is defined as one where the object doesn’t reflect any light in the visible spectrum, what colour are my shiny ‘black’ shoes?
Good question.
My son was fascinated with a view of mine on colours years ago.
At the time we were admiring a rather nice and very deep green shrub in our back garden when I said ‘of course, you could say it’s anti-green’.
After his “say what?” I told him that it appeared green to us because we see that part of the visible spectrum that’s not absorbed by the shrub, i.e., the shrub’s leaves didn’t really like the green frequencies, and so rejected them. I did add that as everyone says it’s green he ought to agree with with the definition of colour being essentially ‘what’s not absorbed’ – but that I often thought of things as being ‘anti’ in this way.
What black are they? You sure they are not just very very very very very dark purple or blue? :o)
This is a really fun question!
Perhaps the part of the shoe that is reflecting the light is not the part that is black. That is, the wax or whatever it is in the polish that makes your shoes shine, does not absorb visible light?
Or maybe it is that there is something very special about an especially smooth surface that makes it so that a greater proportion of light rays are reflected AND that they are reflected “coherently” so that you get a visible “beam” of light.
I hope that someone who know all the right words reads this post!!