Do light colors reflect heat and dark colors absorb heat?
Yes, you can see the simple answers above. Before 1920 that is what we understood. But since the advent of the admittedly complicated quantum mechanics we know that it is not so simple. But just because it is complicated is not a good reason why this theme is so misrepresented. What we now know is that ALL radiation is absorbed; that the packets of energy called photons do not selectively bounce off of atomic or molecular structures … or not. The energy of each photon is absorbed into an atomic or molecular structure, and then, usually very VERY quickly, that energy is radiated in the form of a ‘new’ photon. The sum of the photons emitted are what we used to think was ‘reflected light’. Depending on the nature of the atomic structure, this newly emitted photon may have a relatively high energy, or a relatively low energy, and there may be a relatively many or few of them radiated. Of visible light, higher energy photons are on the blue end of the spectrum, with the low energy at the
