White
light is in fact a mix of
lights
of different colors. Your monitor
made of tiny luminous dots. Each of them
emits the light of
certain color. It was found that eye is the most sensitive to the 3
main primary colors in the light – Red, Green and Blue. The mix of this
three primary colors gives the perception of white light.
If you look closely on the monitor (using zoom lens is a good idea),
you'll see that dots on your monitor are emitting Red Green and Blue
light. This RGB color model called
additive,
because all of the colors
are result of adding of primary colored light of different intensity
(and black simply means - no light). But this model only will work if
you have surface that emit light. However, most of the surfaces
absorb it. Some
surfaces absorb only small amount of light and they look white for us.
Some absorb more and they look gray, dark gray or black. When surface
absorb lightwaves of different length non-uniformly we see it colored.
Green leaf absorbs most of the light but green. Green light gets
reflected more then red or blue, and we see green leaf as a result.
So what happens if you mix colored substances that absorb different
parts of the spectrum? You may find combination that will absorb all
light. And that's exactly what mixture of black marker inks does. This
trick represent
subtractive
color model. Painters use the same model to mix the colors.
If you have ink jet color
printer, same model used there. As well as in movie industry and print
industry.
Check our ink chromatography page to find out how to do ink
chromatography
experiment at home.
