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Black Marker is Really Black?

이미지 제공: Michael Dziedzic

What is color?

What's your favorite color? Yellow is my favorite. If you look at a lemon, you can tell that it is yellow. But you know what? Yellow is not in lemons. So, why do you think lemons are yellow?

We need light to see color. When light hits an object, some colors are reflected off the surface and the surface absorbs all the other colors. Then you can only see the bounced color. Your eyes and brain work together and say, "Oh, this lemon is yellow."

Isaac Newton, who loved optics, identified red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. These colors have different degrees of wavelength and are unique properties of each color. Then, what about black color? How do we see black?

 Materials

  • chromatography paper

  • coffee filter

  • markers

  • pencil

  • tape

  • glass cups

  • water

  • paper towel

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 Procedures

  1. Draw a line on chromatography paper with a black marker.

  2. Tape one end of the paper to the pencil.

  3. Place the paper in the cup of water.

  4. Leave it there for about 5 minutes.

  5. When the water reaches the top, pull it out and dry on a paper towel.

  6. What colors can you see?

  7. Repeat this with red, orange, yellow, green and blue.

 

    Tip! Tip! Only the bottom is touching the water. This is to prevent color ink dissolve in water before it carried up the p

Science Behind It

Marker ink is made by mixing different colors together. As the water moves through the paper, it also carries the molecules of colored ink and drops them off at different points along the way. That’s because different colors travel across the paper at different rates. Some colors dissolve in water easier and are pulled with the water farther up the paper. This separates the parts of a mixture and this technique is called “chromatography”.

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