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Color and Light · entry 36 of 52
Gold and silver describe metallic surface appearances rather than one particular wavelength of light.
The longer version
Metals reflect across the whole visible range, so their appearance comes less from hue than from how uniformly and how strongly they reflect. Silver stays near neutral because its reflectance is fairly even; gold absorbs some blue, leaving the reflected light slightly warm, an effect rooted in how the metal's electrons respond to different frequencies.
The effect also depends on surface. Polished metal gives a mirror-like specular reflection, while the same metal as a fine powder looks black, because countless small faces scatter light into a mat that absorbs repeatedly. Colour terms for metals in many languages sit apart from ordinary hue words for this reason.
Where this entry sits
These facts explore how light behaves and how human eyes turn it into the colors we see. Along the way you meet rainbows, prisms, mirrors, shadows, lasers, and optical tricks that fool our vision every day. The full list sits on the Color and Light page, where every entry is listed in order.
More From Color and Light
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Read 38Optical illusions trick the brain by exploiting the shortcuts it uses to interpret light and edges.
Read 39Afterimages appear when staring at a bright color fatigues the cone cells responding to that hue.
Read 40A gray square looks lighter on a black background than the same square on a white one.
Read 41Neon colors seem to glow because they reflect more light than ordinary dyes can.
Read 42Fluorescent materials absorb invisible ultraviolet light and re-emit it as visible color.
Read 43Glow-in-the-dark objects store light energy and release it slowly over several minutes.
Read 44Polarized sunglasses reduce glare by blocking light waves vibrating in one particular direction.
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