
Originally Posted by
avgas
Actually that one too is still open on debate. Does light bounce or does it get absorbed? or neither.
Actually both. All photons incident on a surface are absorbed. A white surface re-emits all the incident photons. A coloured one re-emits only those that combine to produce that colour and a truly black surface re-emits none.
IIRC What happens behind the scenes is that each photon absorption results in an electron being promoted to a more energetic shell in the atom. Some infinitesimal time later some or all of these electrons fall back to a less energetic shell and a photon is emitted.
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