Does the Color of a House Effect the Inside Temperature Research Paper

Does the Color of a House Effect the Inside Temperature - Research Paper Example Repainting is very clear when you explore the properties of color and light and how it transfers heat into the inside of the house. When you understand these ideas, it seems clear that the color of your house can affect the temperature inside. In some ways, it is incorrect to say that color may affect the inside temperature of a home. Through a strict definition, color is just one way to determine how much energy will be received by a surface compared to another surface. The light from the sun must first pass through the filter of our environment before striking a surface. This surface absorbs some wavelengths and reflects others, which represent color bands to the human eye. These rejected wavelengths become reflected light and our perceived color of an object (Morton, 2006). As a result, color is the aftereffect of light instead of the cause of it. However, color is the way that we make sense of the world around us (Bear, 2006), so it is natural for us to define properties of absorbed light waves in terms of color. â€Å"The most technically accurate definition of color is: ‘Colour is the visual effect that is caused by the spectral composition of the light emitted, transmitted, or reflected by objects’â⠂¬  (Morton, 2006). Accepting the idea that color is the best way for us to predict the light waves that will be reflected off of a surface helps us to predict how much energy that surface will absorb. No matter what color something is, all objects absorb and give off energy based on the level of light it can absorb. According to Konopacki and Akbari of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (2001), the amount of energy absorbed or reflected by an object will depend on the darkness of the object and the material it’s made out of. Darker colors are dark because they absorb most of the energy or light that hits them, reflecting less light.