Phyllis Halls age 14  of Bere. Ohio 

How do we see colors?

Pink roses look pale and ghostly in the moonlit garden. The bright blue sea turns dark after the sun sets. For color needs light. The light may be from the suns from a flare or from an electric lamp. But without light$ which is colorless.: we cannot see colors.

Whites. or colorless light is itself made of colors. Every possible color is blended in white light. Certain tricks of nature force these colors out of hiding. The rainbow splits light into the seven bands of its chief colors reds  orange yellow. greens. blue violet axed indigo.. They shade off with thousands of different tints between.

Light is a form of energy. Its different colors  we are told  travel on different wavelengths. Red rays have the longest wavelengths. dark blue the shortest with each rainbow color graded between. Substances react differently to the different wavelengths in white light.

A sunbeam falls on countless different substances  The red rose in the garden has a different chemical structure from its green leaves. Both are different substances from the paint on the white picket fence. All have a different chemical structure from the coat of Scotty, the black spaniel. And all these different substances react differently to the energy within the sunbeam.;

The red rose takes  or absorbs  certain rays from the white light. Does it use the red rays  the long wavelengths of energy? Not at all. The velvety petals choose the rays of shorter wavelengths. They absorb the blues and the purples. The bright red rays they toss back for our eyes to see. That is why a red rose looks red in the light„ It reflects bank the red rays for all the world to see.

The green leaves absorb the longer rays. They reflect back the greens and maybe some of the blue aid yellow tones. Energy is used from the rays that are absorbed. usually in the form of heat. Nothing of light is wasted  for the unused wavelengths are reflected back to paint the world in all its myriad colors far our eyes to 'see.

Now which rays did the white fence use? It absorbed practically none. No colors were separated from the rainbow blend. So no color. or whites was reflected back for us to see.

Scotty is coat did . just the opposite. It absorbed ally. or almost all. of the colors of light. There were almost no wavelengths left to reflect back a color to our eyes. Scotty is coat is black in the sunlight

It is possible for our eyes to enjoy about 40 different colors and tortes. But sensitive instruments have recorded thousands of them. All are hidden and. blended in white light. Each substance takes some and reflects back others. We see only those reflected colors. White substances reflect the most colors for our eyes to see  black substances the least.