Mirrors have the ability to reflect whatever physical object is in front of them. At first glance, they may appear to have a silver color, which may not be completely inaccurate given how these reflective pieces are made of materials like aluminum. However, this is actually not the color of a mirror.
Science of Colors
As per Futurism, people are able to pick up colors from their surroundings. These colors may be any one of the ten million colors available.
Live Science adds that people are able to detect colors due to specialized eye cells known as cones. These cells are a particular type of photoreceptor, which are small retinal cells that react to light. Each person has around 6 to 7 million cones, with several of them being different from each other. Around 64% of cones strongly react to red light, while around one-third respond to green light, and 2% react to blue light.
But what makes an object's color? Futurism notes that an object's color largely depends on the color of light that it does not absorb. When light hits an item, like a blue shirt, each color gets absorbed except orange. The colors get diffused and dispersed in varying directions. Hence, regardless of the angle from which it is seen, the item remains blue.
For white items, each color in the spectrum gets reflected, with none of them getting absorbed. This gives the item a white appearance.
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What Color Is a Mirror?
A perfect mirror should also have the capacity to reflect every color, which is why every color gets reflected back when an object is put in front of a mirror.
Given this, one may think that a mirror is white. However, the issue is that reflective mirrors do not function the same way as objects that scatter and diffuse light.
If light hits a blue shirt, for instance, the blue light that is not absorbed becomes reflected and dispersed across different directions. This is called diffuse reflection.
According to Gizmodo, however, a mirror only reflects light in a particular direction. Because of this, one may view a mirror from the side and see items from across the room at the exact same angle. Such a phenomenon is known as specular reflection.
Though this is how a "perfect mirror" may work, there are no perfect mirrors in reality. Because of their imperfections, mirrors only absorb small amounts of light, which appear insignificant enough to lead to reflection changes.
If one sees the light spectrum that comes off a mirror that reflects light that is white, one may observe the light at best within a range of 510 nanometers, which is perceived to be green light. This implies that most mirrors reflect green light more than other colors. Because of this, mirrors are actually faintly green.
This is something that can be tested out at home. If one positions two mirrors in front of each other, the mirror tunnel can be observed. The same image will be reflected endlessly.
Upon observing the mirror tunnel, in each reflection, the visual light will get lower, yet the green light loses the least quantity. Hence, going deeper into the mirror tunnel, one may observe that the image gets darker and greener.
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