• Question: Objects under water appear to be less colourful than out of water, why is this?

    Asked by to Kate, Kieren, Nicola, Rowena, Roy on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Water is denser than air, so you have more water “in the way” absorbing the coloured light.

      Also, light travels more slowly in a dense medium (and sound travels faster) and this causes it to “bend” its path on entering and leaving, so we see the object seems to have moved and I guess going slower means more light could be scattered and lost so some of the intensity is lost and we get less light out to see the colours.

    • Photo: Kate Nicholson

      Kate Nicholson answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      As light passes from water to air or air to water it gets bent and changes speed. Just like a prism can split white light into the colours of the rainbow so can the water to air change. This means that the light is spread out more so appears less brightly coloured.

    • Photo: Roy Adkin

      Roy Adkin answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      The light that passes through water is bounced off, or scattered by, water molecules and so loses intensity…this is called attenuation…so that any colours of objects you may see under water are less intense than you would see out of water.

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