Black

:This article is about the color black; for other uses, see Black (disambiguation).

Color or light

Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced in directions from which no visible light reaches the eye. (This makes a contrast with whiteness, the impression of any combination of colors of light that equally stimulates all three types of color-sensitive visual receptors.)

Related Topics:
Visible light - White - Color - Light

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Pigments that absorb light rather than reflect it back to the eye "look black". A black pigment can, however, result from a combination of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors. If appropriate proportions of three primary pigments are mixed, the result reflects so little light as to be called "black".

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This provides two superficially opposite but actually complementary descriptions of black. Black is the lack of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment. See also Primary colors and Primary pigments.

Related Topics:
Primary colors - Primary pigments

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In physics, a black body is a perfect absorber of light, but by a rule derived by Einstein it is also, when heated, the best emitter! Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the infrared as well.

Related Topics:
Physics - Black body - Einstein - Infrared

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In elementary science far Ultraviolet light is called "black light" because, unseen per se, it causes many minerals and other substances to flouresce.

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