Comix and Clashes

Have you seen Litterbox Comics? It’s got cats! It’s got science! What more could I want? Okay, maybe a few flying teacups and the odd dragon or two. 

 See the panels below for the inspiring Litterbox comic (at bottom) and a few bits it brought out, (just above). I’ve excerpted for your reading pleasure. Yur welcome.

By the way, I try to avoid reading the comments on most posts (obvs, I'm not always successful in that endeavor). We humans seem to be obsessively fond of arguing/talking shit. Doesn’t matter if it’s about whether or not the Republi/Fascist party consists of nothing but egomaniacal, dimwitted and greedheaded performance “artists” (spoiler alert: yes, that descriptive applies to each and every one of those ratfucking fucks) or if orange marmalade is superior to grape jelly (it is, duh). Put the question or statement online and there will be a brawl.

This one was intriguing, informative and amusing though. Also, it's an unusually civilized dust up (for the intertubes).

Commenter 1: A single atom is smaller than the wavelength of light so is invisible and colourless.

Commenter 2: Since a mass of atoms has color, then each individual atom must as well.
Take iron. It is made (in pure form) of a single atom, repeated over and over- the Iron (Fe) atom. We see it. It has color. Unless we are from the UK, in which case, it has the more complex colour.

Slice it thin enough, and it will begin to become translucent. The fewer atoms reflect a lower amount of color, but still a non-zero amount of reflectiveness and color.

The same is true of a single atom.

Commenter 3: I would argue that atoms are where colors come from. Or, more specifically, electrons. If you…excite an orbiting electron it's going raise up into a higher energy state. Then it's going to release that energy in the form of light to 'quantum leap' back to lower states of energy. The amount of energy needed to jump orbits will determine the frequency, or color, that you see.

Commenter 4: No. Single atoms are smaller than the wavelength of visible light and cannot be said to have colour.

Commenter 5: But do colors exist? Or only wavelengths of light the substance reflects back at the observer and how the observer experiences the wavelength as a color.

Commenter 6: Even if atoms weren't too small to have colour, isn't it so that matter only has colour by virtue of the light that falls on it, ie what light it reflects? Eg plants are green because they absorb the other parts of the spectrum, and only reflect green?