Nothing Is Colored

Nothing Is Colored

Name Date
DIRECTIONS: A red apple is not red. Read why, then test it with a colored light.
1Read about color
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2Page 2: try a red torch
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3Page 2: fill in the grid
white lightarrivingredorangeyellowgreenbluevioletkepta RED applered — and only redthis is all that reaches youits color is the list of what it would not keep

White light is every color at once. The apple keeps the orange, yellow, green and blue, and sends back only red. Red is all that reaches your eye.

So the color is not in the apple.

It is in the light leaving the apple. A thing's color is the one it refuses to keep.

The two ends of it

White

Sends nearly all of it back.

Black

Keeps nearly all of it. No light comes off it to see.

Check it: kept light becomes warmth. Leave a black and a white thing in the sun for half an hour, then touch each. Which is hotter, and why?

The Torch That Proves It

Nothing Is Colored

DIRECTIONS: Change the light, and the color changes. In a dark room, shine a colored light on things.

A colored light: a red bike lamp, a phone screen of one color, or a flashlight under candy wrapper.

white lightredgreenbluea GREEN applegreengreen comes back — it looks green
a red torchreda GREEN applenothingcomes backnothing comes back — it looks BLACK

Not dark red. Black. The apple only gives back green, and there is no green light to give.

Fill it in first, then go and look

Fill in the grid, then check with your light. You see only what the lamp gives and the thing sends back.

white lighta red torcha green torch
1. a red applered
2. a green applegreen
3. a white platewhite
4. a black shoeblack
5. a yellow lemonyellow
A lemon was never yellow.

It sends back red and green, and yellow is what those two look like together.

Predict: so red paint plus green paint makes yellow? Try it.