Objects don’t have color, then why do we see objects with different colors?

Would you be surprised if I tell you  that all the beautiful things you see is because of the difference in the wavelength of a photon?

Yes, it is true. Everything you see around you, the trees, the house, people, animals, etc they have different colors and shapes. Shapes are because of different reason. That is not what I mean. What I mean is that all the different colors you see which make the world beautiful is a photon having different wavelengths.

When you see a red apple, you think that the apple is red. No. The apple is not red. It reflects the red wavelength of light. Let me explain. An object does not  have a color. A light(photon) has color. And the color of the photon depends on the wavelength. The color of light ranges from infrared to ultraviolet.

If the wavelength is short, it will shift towards blue and then violet and ultraviolet. If the wavelength is very long, it will be red, or infrared. An object, say an apple is red because it absorbs all other wavelengths of VIBGYOR except red. Also, a red object means that the object reflects low energy or the object has low energy. If the object is blue, then it has higher energy. The energy of an object increases from low to high as the color of the object shifts from red to blue.

The real reason why we see objects in different colors is that they absorb energy of the electromagnetic wave (photon) coming from the light source and reflect it in some wavelength.  If it does not reflect anything, we see the object as black. And if it reflects all the wavelengths (color), we see it as white. If it reflects only one wavelength, we see it as one of the colors from VIBGYOR. If it reflect more than one wavelength, then our brain will create a hypothetical color and see it like pink, magenta, etc.

So, this is it. Objects don’t have color. What we see as color is due to the wavelength of the photon emitted by the object after absorbing the energy of the photon. And that photon must come from a light source. If there is no light source, then there is no photon to absorb and reflect, that is why we can’t see objects in the dark.