As we reside in a world that is becoming increasingly concerned with energy conservation and protecting the environment it is important to understand as much as you possibly can about saving energy and helping to protect the environment in every way that you possibly can. Heating and the absorption of heat is an extremely important part of this and colours can actually play a large part in the absorption of heat. Many people are aware that darker objects and surfaces are able to absorb more light and heat but very few people are actually aware of the reason for this. The simplest way to explain it is to not think about the objects or surfaces as absorbers of heat but as absorbers of light instead, this is actually what is happening. The actual colour of an object or a surface is determined by the wavelengths of colours that are reflected from the surface when light hits it. For example a red car is only red because the red wavelengths are reflected off the surface and all of the other colours are absorbed into the surface. So if the car was illuminated by light that had no red wavelengths what so ever then the car would actually appear almost black. When any black object or surface is illuminated by white light, every wavelength is absorbed and thus the object appears black. All of the energy that is absorbed is transformed into a lower energy infrared or heat. This is the reason that the darker the object or surface, the more effective they are at absorbing heat.
