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Original Question:

Explain, why in daylight an object appears red when seen through a red glass and black when seen through a blue glass?


My understanding according to what is given in my textbook was like that in daylight blue colour is almost absent in the rays reaching us (Ques: 1 Is it true? Why so?).

Hence, now when the rays strike the object and head to our eyes, they will be having all seven colours VIBGYOR in increasing order of their presence like Violet will be least blue may be little little and red will be present mostly (Ques 2: Am I correct? Why so? A broader explanation is expected)

So now on striking the red glass , it absorbs all other colours but reflect red colour, so if the red colour if reflected then how do we view the object red the red light is reflected na? Is it because some part of red light gets refracted through the red glass too? So the light that is reflected or refracted (Refracted also or reflected only?) is the same colour as of the mirror (or any other coloured object) in general?

So now for blue glass if my intuition is correct up there than it it easy to deduct that the object will be almost black (Almost or full black?).


So now overall do I stand correct?

Note: Wherever you find it wrong or a bit doubtful feel free to demonstrate and point those things to me.

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  • $\begingroup$ A red object would appear like this. That is an object that reflects only red light, even if other colors shine on it too. $\endgroup$
    – mmesser314
    Commented Oct 25, 2023 at 18:51

2 Answers 2

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My understanding according to what is given in my textbook was like that in daylight blue colour is almost absent in the rays reaching us

I'm not sure why your textbook would say that. It certainly isn't true. Here's a graph showing the spectrum of sunlight (source Wikimedia commons)

sunlight spectrum (Wikimedia Commons)

That pretty clearly shows (to the left end of the region labeled as "Visible" that while there is less blue in sunlight than (say) yellow, the blue is certainly not entirely absent. So, if your textbook says this, it is time to stop trusting that textbook!!

So now on striking the red glass , it absorbs all other colours but reflect red colour, so if the red colour if reflected then how do we view the object red the red light is reflected na? Is it because some part of red light gets refracted through the red glass too? So the light that is reflected or refracted (Refracted also or reflected only?) is the same colour as of the mirror (or any other coloured object) in general?

I think the question was asking about looking at an object "through" the glass. So we are not really concerned with reflection, we are concerned with the light which transmits through the glass (that light will refract, but that has nothing to do with the colour we will see, so let's just focus on the light passing through the glass, without worrying about the fact that refraction causes the light to somewhat change its direction of travel). The glass looks red because it absorbs light at shorter wavelengths. But this doesn't mean that only red passes through. For any real "red glass" it is just that much more red light is transmitted than other colours. Try it out. If you look at a white object through red glass it will certainly look red. But if you look at any other object you are going to see other colours but everything will be tinted "towards red", which is a rather complicated effect.

But now back to the original question.

Explain, why in daylight an object appears red when seen through a red glass and black when seen through a blue glass?

Is this even true? I've certainly never noticed it. Finding a blue glass and looking out the window I can most certainly report that it is not true. If I look at a white object then it looks blue. If I look at any other object I see multiple colours tinted towards blue. Where did this question come from? The question seems to be talking about a somewhat fictional reality.

If you look at a red object through blue glass, it could appear nearly black if the glass is "very blue" in the sense that it only transmits well over a very narrow wavelength range (rare in practice...). Very little blue light is reflected from the red object, and so most of the light arriving from the object at the glass is red. This hypothetical "very blue" glass transmits the red very poorly, and so you will see hardly any light arriving from the object. The object looks black because there is too little light arriving from it for your eyes to detect. But that's a very specific case of a red object viewed through a blue glass. This would be true if viewed in sunlight, but would also be true if viewed in any other "roughly white light" such as light from typical lightbulbs.

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I think the question is with regard to a specific object. i.e. why does 'this' object appear red through red glass and black through blue glass.

Then the answer would be that the object is red (reflects red light).

Red glass transmits red light and absorbs blue light, so the red light reflected off the red object will get through and the object will appear red.

Blue glass transmits blue light and absorbs red light, so the red light reflected off the red object will be absorbed in the glass and the object will appear black.

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