What colour is an object in the dark?

[mTaz]

I believe that the colour of an object is determined by the light it absorbs. i.e. a white object absorbs maximum light and thus appears white. A black object absorbs no light and therefore appears black. So, what colour is an object in complete darkness? If its not visible do we really no its black?

[mse1]

Just because you can't see it, it does not mean the object does not have a colour. The colour of the object is a property of whatever material the object is made of, regardless of whether you can see the colour or not. It is still there. Although you are right in saying "how do you know a black object in complete darkness is really black" Obviously you can not prove this until you see the object in lightened conditions. Ie a red ball in a black room is still a red ball. Just because you cannot see it is red, this does not change the fact it is red. A more interesting question which i have wondered is how do you explain the concept of colours to a person that was born completely blind. Now answer that one. :-)

[sft42]

Actually your premise in the question is back to front. White reflects back the most light and black reflects the least amount as no colors (go on spellmaster i bet you can't resist it) actually absorb light. Last questions are more like the rhetorical "if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound" if you put a red jumper on in a completely dark room it doesn't cease to have colour just that it's not visible.

[smorodina]

White objects reflect the full spectrum of colours and black ones absorb it. All other coloured objects reflect the part of the colour spectrum that they appear. In the dark there is no light to reflect so an object must appear to have no colour and the degree of colouration is determined by the amount of available light. Light of different types will cause the apparent colour of an object to change, although the eyes will compensate for this to some extent. This can be seen in photography, where you need a filter to compensate for the differences in artificial light and daylight. Objects under artificial light appear much redder than in natural light. Look at a colour picture under the orange sodium lights in the street and all the colours are reduced to shades of orange. In fact all objects under that light appear monochrome and because our brains are so good at compensating, we are not generally aware of this. So, if it were possible in some way to perceive the colour of an object in a dark room it would appear black, but even small amounts of light will reflect some colour and allow us to deduce the actual colour of the object.

[sft42]

I can't understand the confusion here. Is anyone suggesting that a red jumper stops being red because it's in a lightproof room. get a grip it's just not visible with the available light that's all

[Welshwizard]

Nothing has a color, the color is in the light not the object, the object just manipulates the light is all, so in my opinion when you turn out the light the object is no longer red, it never was, the light was and it's gone.

[Haitch]

A colour is simply a wavelength of light that reacts with a certain group of cells in the eye when it hits them to send a signal to the brain to tell you what you are seeing. From birth we learn that we can see different wavelengths of light and when we learn to communicate we learn to identify what we see with a name for it but nobody has, as far as I am aware, proved that what we all see is consistent. For instance we all (unless colourblind) can identify a wavelength that is determined as red and know that wavelength when we see it but how do we know that all our brains are interpreting it in the same way? (I think this is worth it's own question)

[Malandro]

not the answer you're looking for perhaps, but the eye works in black and white only in the dark (something to do with rods and cones in your eye, any biologists around might explain better) Useless fact: Green is the last colour you can see as the light fails.

[SKyboi]

If you are in complete darkness do you have no colour? Also if an object were to not have any colour because you can't see it, you might as well ask does it exist because you can't see it...?

[david niven]

I believe that this has been established in previous answers but let me clarify. Colour is reflected light. If there is no light for an object to reflect then there can be no colour. Also these ideas that the world we see and touch depends for its existence on our percieving it [tree falling in desserted forest etc] is called BERKELIAN after the Bishop Berkeley [1685-1753] who believed that the tree did exist even if you're not there to see or hear it fall because God is.

[kjavds]

In the dark, its color is that which it was last painted, ie same as it appears to be viewed under light. See also my www.ezrelativity.tk

[davver]

Just to tag another issue on to this, how do I know that the colours I see are the colours everyone else sees? I'm sure you understand what I mean as lots of people I know have agreed to having wondered this at some point, and it is even a line in badly drawn boy's new single! The answer is, we can't know, unless telepathy exists. For a full explanation, see John Wisdom's book 'Other Minds'. By the way, Wittgenstein commented on a question such as this that this type of philosophy was entirely pointless and a waste of time, though this didn't stop him writing several such books! there was a point i suppose - to earn him money

[Mintox]

This is another example of science trying to explain stuff thats is just is. things are red coz they are red thats it else woudent the light change the colour of things as it hit it?? NO coz its red but what about if i put a blue light on it?? NO still red - green?? Still Red....Pink...oh shut up its getting stupid now. also Davver im colour blind so i see the world in totally diff spectrum. not really the sort of thing i can comment on!! now im just going to put on my red jumper that all say is green!!

[Twylo]

Whats really confusing is colour can be argued as light and pigment. Remember finger painting at school? when u managed to get all those primarys (colours, not schools) mixed up together they made black but with light they make white. Have you ever noticed that in a theatre there aren't any white coloured lights used for lighting the stage area? This is because white, or clear bulbs appear slightly yellow. If they want to make pure white light (for a spotlight moment) they use a red light, a green light and a blue one.

[ilanga]

Actually, white objects absorb no light, they reflect every colour in the spectrum and therefore appear white (e.g, u get a tan while ski-ing). Black absorbs all colours, reflect none and therefore appears black. Objects aren't actually coloured, different substances reflect different colours from the spectrum.

[lord_morgan]

So to sum-up. It is fair to say that the definition of "the colour of an object" is in fact the colour of light reflected off that object. Am I right in thinking it is possible that "light" can be made up of different colours depending on the source, and that light from another star may well show objects as different colours to that of the sun?