Question

A yellow colored dress would appear to be ____ when viewed through a green filter.
A) Black
B) Green
C) Yellow
D) Orange

Answer 1

A filter only allows the same colored light to pass through it. All the other light waves do not pass through this filter. And hence the color of the filter is the only color that can be observed if present in the object that is viewed. Else the object will appear to be black.

Complete answer:
Before answering this question, it is necessary to understand how a human eye perceives color and how light actually works. Particularly the visible light rays and also let us understand how filters work and how they are useful.

So white light which is visible light is made up of seven different colors. They are: Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. Now we know that, white is a mixture of all these colors and on the other hand black is not a real color, instead black is absent of color. So if anything appears to be black, it is because it is not reflecting any color.

Let’s understand how we see colors, we see colorful objects when the light rays fall on our retina after reflecting back from an object. The object reflects a certain color and absorbs other colors. So, when we see something as yellow it is because that object absorbed all the six wavelengths and will only reflect back therefore the object appears as yellow.

Now, when we use a green filter to view the dress, the filter will block all the light waves and will allow only green light to pass. Since there is no green light present in the dress hence the dress will appear as Black.

Therefore, option (A) is the correct option.

Note: We know that, white color is basically a mixture of different colors. Black is not a color, it is when there is absence of colors. Now, when objects absorb all the visible wavelengths of light they appear to be black and when objects reflect all the visible wavelengths of light they appear to be white. Filters only allow specific wavelengths of light to pass through.