What is the colour of the mirror?

What is the colour of the mirror?

What is the colour of the mirror?
What is the colour of the mirror?


If someone asks you to name the colour of the mirror that we use every day, what would you answer? You might say that it is somewhat white or of silver in colour. But is your answer, right? Let's find in this article.
What is the colour of the mirror?
What is the colour of the mirror?

The mirror is considered to be a thing that changes its colour according to the object that faces it. For example, if you would look into it, it would look like you and if you would place a black paper near it, it would turn black. So a mirror just reflects back everything that we expose it to. A perfect mirror is a mirror that reflects all the light that strikes it. A perfect mirror doesn't absorb anything or any light. But in our everyday life, the mirrors we use are not a perfect mirror. They absorb a little bit amount of light.

What is the colour of the mirror?

What is the colour of the mirror?
What is the colour of the mirror?

Not first let us understand that how any object get any colour. It means that what determines the colour of an object. For example, if something is red then why is it red or if something is blue then why so.

ALSO READ THIS: Why glass is transparent?

The light we see in our everyday life is a part of electromagnetic radiation, but this part falls in visible region so we can see it. The visible light contains 7 colour i.e. Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red.
What is the colour of the mirror?
What is the colour of the mirror?

Now anything we see in our everyday life is made of any of these colours or combination of these colours. When white light of sun falls on any object, some part of the light is absorbed by that object and rest is reflected back. Now you may ask why objects absorb light? It is because the electron present in the atom of that object absorbs this light energy to jump into a higher energy level. And as they reach higher energy level, the atom becomes less stable. Thus to gain stability again these electrons jump back to lower energy states and emits the same light that corresponds to the energy difference between these two levels. Now the colour that we see of any object is due to the emission of this same light. It means if something is yellow then the electron of its atom absorbs yellow light of the sun to raise energy level and thus transmits yellow light on coming back to lower energy level.
What is the colour of the mirror?
What is the colour of the mirror?

What is the colour of the mirror?  (Conclusion)

Now let's determines the colour of the mirror according to this scheme. As I said earlier that everyday mirrors we use are not perfect mirror and hence absorb some amount of light. But which colour light is absorbed by these mirrors? The answer is green. The everyday mirrors we use absorbs some part of the green region of white light. Thus we can say that everyday mirrors are somewhat green. But they are not completely green as not all the green light of the visible light is absorbed but a little part of it. Thus you now know that the colour of the mirror is green.
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Do you know that babies usually start recognising their face in the mirror just after 2 years of their birth?

Thanks for reading our post What is the colour of the mirror? Hope you gain your knowledge about this topic and you learn an interesting topic about the science facts.
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