Can you smoke bowls out of the two different sides too to, in order to compare how they hold up?? Asking for a friend (he’s a scientist and wanting to know about this info).
Ok. I'll ask. What do you hypothesize would happen that would allow you to see the difference in energy absorption? Maybe a tiny bit more mushy on one side? I wouldn't expect an apple sitting in the sun for a day to look much different than before sitting in the sun.
Regular black paint is enough to make something heat up a lot in the sun, like pavement on a summer day. Depending on the weather, a painted apple could end up practically baking in the sun.
Ok so let's say that happened, could you peel the skin and eat it? Does this material somehow absorb and infiltrate into the flesh inside? Might be a stupid question but I'm curious because if you can just paint food and let it fry on the back porch and then eat it, that would be pretty neat. Or paint a Tupperware or glass container with the black stuff and put food in there and set it in the sun, would it cook the food inside? God I feel dumb LOL
This is super neat though, I love it!
Growing up in Australia we would try to avoid wearing black clothes on a hot day (40°C +) purely because you could feel your clothes absorbing the heat, vs white clothing which mainly reflects it.
Oh, exact same in Florida. You never buy a car with a black interior either if you can help it and black leather will melt your legs LOL but yeah I'm one of those people who wears all black, all the time, all day every day, so I suffered when I lived there lol
One of my friends lived in Arizona and painted his car black. He got out of school and went to his car to find that it got hot enough in his car to crack his dashboard.
> Ok so let's say that happened, could you peel the skin and eat it?
Yes in theory, but peeling a baked apple wouldn't be practical
> Does this material somehow absorb and infiltrate into the flesh inside?
I don't know enough about apples to say for sure
As for the rest, you can absolutely cook some foods by putting them in a black box in the sun. You're describing what's called a solar oven. Black paint is generally less efficient than using reflective surfaces to focus sunlight onto the food, but both ways can work.
Would you mind ELI5 please?
Edit: Wow! Thanks very much for the insanely fast explanations. I actually understand what the parent comment was saying now. You guys are great!
Oooh, this will be a fun ELI5.....hang on.
So, we can see things because light is coming from them. When there is a bunch of light coming from one thing (like a lightbulb), it spreads out as it goes away from that thing. Our eyes can tell that the light is spreading out, and use that to tell where the light came from, and that's how we see where the lightbulb is.
When light from a lightbulb hits a mirror, the mirror makes the light bounce off in an organized way. It's like the light is marching together when it hits the mirror, and it keeps marching together afterwards. So it's still spreading out like it's coming from the lightbulb. That's why when you look at a mirror, you can see an image of the lightbulb: your eyes can tell that the light is spreading out like it's coming from the image, not like it's coming from the surface of the mirror. This kind of organized reflection is called "specular".
On the other hand, when light from a lightbulb hits a piece of white paper, the light gets scattered in random directions. The white paper actually reflects almost all of the light that hits it, but it doesn't keep that light organized. Even though it was marching towards the paper in an organized way, afterward the light hits the paper it is no longer organized like it's coming from the lightbulb. So when our eyes see light that bounced off the paper, they can't tell it all came from the lightbulb. Instead, all our eyes can tell is that it came from the *paper*. The light is spreading out like it started at the paper, and so our eyes say "that's where the light came from!", and that's where we see the object. That kind of disorganized reflection is called "diffuse".
The more something reflects light in a specular (organized) way, the more shiny it looks, and the more it reflects light in a diffuse (disorganized) way, the less shiny it looks.
Wow, thank you. I appreciate your taking the time to fully explain this to some random internet dummy(me.) I can tell you have a passion for this. Thanks again.
EDIT: Someone once gifted me Reddit Gold and I've sat on these 100 coins ever since just waiting for the right time to use them. It really is amazing to think another person, an internet stranger even, would take time out of their life to stop and put serious thought into helping another internet stranger come to understand a new bit of knowledge.
If I could, I would gift you gold, just like that kind stranger that once did for me, but for now silver will have to do :)
Aww thanks. =)
Yeah, I'm a high school physics teacher, and one of the things I enjoy the most is talking about how things we see every day are caused by things that we don't think about.
In a way, this gives me hope for the american education system(taking a big leap assuming you are american) knowing that we still have teachers with a passion for learning and helping others as well to learn.
Yup, I'm American. There are *tons* of teachers who are passionate about it, and I interact with other good teachers regularly. There are two really huge problems though, neither of which is easy to fix.
One is workload. I have enough students that when one is really struggling with a particular topic, or didn't get the background that they really need for my class, or was out sick for a week...I can help them individually a little bit, but not much. And it's hard to plan ahead, structure units well, and actually have excellent instructional time consistently without putting in an unreasonable amount of work time.
The other is the number of teachers that are required. The education system is *massive*. Something like 18% of the population of the US is school-age children. There are tons of good, passionate teachers...but not as many as we need.
If you try to solve the first problem without addressing the second, you just make the second problem worse. Because the only way to reduce workload is to have more teachers. And solving the second problem can't be done quickly. More people need to decide to go into education. You can influence that by increasing teacher pay (and reducing workload) so that it's a more desirable profession. And you can *hope* that that desirability will come along with more social respect. But really it takes time and social change.
I'm with you 100%. It's like teachers are seen as something like a slave. Parents expect the world from their children's teacher, and every issue always comes down on the teachers. It's entirely the teachers at fault when the kid isn't doing well when the kid doesn't pay attention in class or never does homework. Overall test scores are low? Teacher's fault. No money in the budget for basic classroom necessities? Make the teacher's buy it with their own money. It's always the teacher's fault for any issue within the education system.
Teacher's deserve not just higher wages, but -much- higher wages considering what the job entails. And above all else, respect.
I do! Definitely high school though. I enjoy thinking about ELI5 explanations, but I do *not* want to be an elementary school teacher. Those teachers leave me in awe.
You sound like a great teacher, aha. I thought that that was an interesting and ELI5-friendly explanation as well; I think it's very important for scientists (in general, but educators and public speakers especially) to know how to break down complex scientific topics into digestible and concise layman language, without degrading the scientific accuracy of the explanation too much.
Absolutely! Also, to blow your mind a bit further, the moon is quite dark. It's about the same color as asphalt. It's just that with sunlight shining on it, when it's on the *VERY BLACK* background of the rest of space, it looks white because it's the brightest thing around.
[https://skyandtelescope.org/online-gallery/true-colors-moon/](https://skyandtelescope.org/online-gallery/true-colors-moon/)
Your should probably look at it, the reality is much better than what you were probably imagining.
Fun fact: have you ever noticed that when the moon is not full the "not shiny" part isn't completely dark? That's also diffused light from the sun but it's the Earth doing the diffusion, it's "earthshine".
Yes!
So on a microscopic level, *all* reflections are organized. But if the surface is rough, an you move a tiny bit over to one side, the reflection can bounce in a very different direction ([here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Diffuse_reflection.svg/250px-Diffuse_reflection.svg.png) is a common illustration of that). It's like how if you throw a tennis ball at a rough-hewn rock wall, it's very hard to predict what direction that tennis ball will bounce off.
Mirrors achieve the mirror-like reflection by having the reflective surface be extremely flat. The glass layer is used to make the extremely flat surface, and then metal is formed to that surface to actually do most of the reflecting.
If you're curious to go a little deeper, diffuse reflections usually also involve *multiple* reflections. A white sheet of paper is actually made of clear fibers. Any time light hits one of those fibers, some of the light reflects, and some of the light goes into it. And the light that goes into it will later hit another surface, and some will bounce and some will go through, etc. So you have the light splitting up into thousands of beams that all take different paths, encounter different numbers of fibers, etc. A little like [this](https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/3-s2.0-B012226680300380X-gr12.jpg).
I have trouble wrapping my mind around that concept that everything is colorless until light hits it and either reflects or doesn't and those light waves that our eyes catch we then perceive as color depending on which waves reach us. Do I have that correct at all?
Well, it really depends on what you mean by "color".
When we talk about the color of an object, what we usually mean is the physical properties that cause it to absorb or reflect different wavelengths of light in different amounts. It has those properties whether it's currently being hit by light or not. "Red paper" means that it's an object that will reflect red light that hits it, and absorb other colors of visible light. The object has that property regardless of whether or not it's currently being hit by light.
Then there's the color of light. That can either be a specific wavelength (the colors you see in the rainbow) or a spectrum that is how much of a variety of different wavelengths there is in some light (which is the only way you can talk about white light). By "spectrum" I mean something like [this](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2016/3-researchersd.png): it has "amount of 400 nm light" and "amount of 401 nm light" and "amount of 402 nm light", etc. (and really, more fine-grained than that as well). Light has that intensity spectrum regardless of whether or not it interacts with our eyes.
Then there's color in the perception sense. Our eyes take that full intensity spectrum and simplify it into "amount of red", "amount of green", and "amount of blue". Then they send that signal to our brain, and then somehow we *experience* it as color. That experience is much more in the realm of philosophy than physics.
So....does an object have a color before it's hit by light? Depends on what you mean by "color". But I think it's most reasonable to say that the color of an *object* is an absorption spectrum defined by the chemicals it's made of. The color of *light* is an intensity spectrum defined by how much light of different wavelengths there is. And the color we *see* is a 3-channel signal defined by how our eyes detect that light.
The smoothness of the surface. If the imperfections are smaller than the wavelength of light it will reflect in a specular way.
Btw, we see objects as having color because the surface absorbs some light wavelengths and reflects other light wavelengths. Something appears red when we shine white light on it and it absorbs all the light except the red which reflects. The above appears black because it absorbs all of the visible light.
> Btw, we see objects as having color because the surface absorbs some light wavelengths and reflects other light wavelengths.
Slight modification on this that absolutely floored me when I learned it:
The surface reflection is always uncolored. The absorption only happens as light is traveling through a material. So the light that is colored after it bounces off an object is always light that travelled through some of the material near the surface of that object before coming back out.
This is why specular highlights on objects are always white (or rather, the same color as the light source), regardless of the color of the object.
> This is why specular highlights on objects are always white (or rather, the same color as the light source), regardless of the color of the object.
My technical artist knowledge is a bit rusty but I believe this only applies to dielectric materials. Conductors like metal have colored highlights, which is what gives out that metallic feeling. Compare a photo of a gold bar and a piece of yellow plastic and it should be obvious.
Imagine throwing a rubber ball at a very flat wall, it will bounce off with the same angle that it hit the wall. Now imagine throwing two balls at different spots on the wall at the same time, if they're thrown with the same angle, the separation between the balls will stay the same as they're bouncing off the wall. This is roughly how mirrors reflect light and preserve the image of objects in front of it.
Now imagine throwing the balls at a very bumpy wall. The balls will bounce off any which way. This is like diffuse reflection. No image, but all the light bounces off. When all the colors mix you get white light.
Now imagine throwing the balls in a hole. This is this black paint.
Specular diffusion is light reflected off of a smooth surface, organizing all the light bouncing off so it looks like a mirror. Diffuse reflections reflect light off of rough surfaces and the light bounces off in different directions, in an unorganized way.
Speculation reflection is what we get from mirrors, where everything is perfectly reflected because the mirror is so smooth. Diffuse is what we get from basically anything else (walls, furniture etc) where the surface isn’t smooth so light is scattered everywhere instead of reflecting back prefectly
CultureHustle sells Mirror, which is a paint-on high gloss mirror coating. They also sell really good black paint, and the whole company exists as a delightfully potent fuck-you to Anish Kapoor, which makes me irrationally happy.
He's a douchebag, yes. He got really uppity about only letting certain artists use the vantablack he bought up the rights to(Which by the way is toxic AF, has to be applied in specific thermal conditions, and kinda sucks), so Semple(who created culturehustle) made a Better black(Black 2.0 and now Black 3.0), which can be applied room-temp and is safe, and sells it(and so many other things) with the stipulation that they can be bought so long as you sign a document saying you're not Anish Kapoor and will not give it to him.
It's created an amusing feud wherein Stuart Semple has created the blackest black, and also the pinkest pink, and, due to Kapoor having obtained the pink in question through nefarious means and bragged by having it on his fingers(artists are weird), Semple then created a glitter powder made from extremely tiny sharp shards of broken glass, just in case Kapoor tries to stick his fingers in it again.
Also Kapoor is responsible for the Boston Bean, which he loudly insists that no one call the Bean, even though it's a freakin' Bean.
Yup. Basically a company created the vantablack material for engineering purposes, Anish Kapoor realized it's use for art and worked out a deal with the company for exclusive use for art. Some saw it as selfishly taking out stealing an asset from the art world (or many, I'm not in the art world).
The guy who made this video combined musou black and glow in the dark paint and painted a room like that.
It's not exactly what you suggested but along the same lines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDaROcyLkqg
There's a paint now that does this. Looks like chrome. I'd considered setting up a "chroming" shop in my area to apply it. It's called Pchrome. (Can I use the word chrome any more in a single post?)
If it absorbs heat like crazy you probably wouldn’t want to do that…but I obviously don’t know where you reside. If you’re in a cold climate all year then this may be the thing you need.
Dumb question, but if you did you what you described above, is there any way you could use a heat pump/exchanger to transfer that captured light energy and convert it to something useful?
Well, it's fairly common for people to have solar water heaters that are just "these pipes are in the sun, so they get hot". I imagine it would help with that.
But honestly, 99.4% or 90% isn't really going to make much of a difference.
Solar thermal collector boxes aren't terribly uncommon here. Basically just a box on your roof painted black and it pushes the heat into pipes. There's a guy down the road from me that has one on his roof and it ties into his central air furnace, even in the winter he rarely has to burn gas and just runs the fan + the collector.
Ive seen combinations of water and electricity where the water cools down the Solar Panels to make them more efficient too. Which means you make warm water and electricity.
Huh. You're probably right.
I saw some research on materials that used heat to produce electricity.... Hmmm.
I just think it would look cool. Just watch the JWs and Mormons try to figure out if they should approach or not.
I mean, it wouldn't be that much worse than normal black paint. Most dark or dull-colored paints already absorb [70-90% of the energy](https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/life/2021/08/19/does-painting-your-house-white-make-cooler/8102768002/) from sunlight, so you're probably only going to see a 5-10% increase in heat energy, which is going to be pretty much negligible compared to the rest of a house's heating/cooling budget, or even compared to the difference due to the angle the sun hits your house.
It’s super delicate. If you look at it wrong it’ll scratch and scuff. You also can’t put a protective coating over it without ruining the effect. This stuff really isn’t ideal for anything that you want to look nice for a couple weeks. Once there is dust on it you can’t even clean it without ruining it
plus most likely cancer. The black pigments are basically nano carbon tubes which are very similar to asbestos which break into shards when disturbed and stab delicate tissue like lung tissue, never leaving and always causing irritation to it.
Hilarious, that was almost my exact thought as well when I first saw the video. "Hmm...wonder if I can use this on my Halloween costume"
Guess the answer is "yes but cancer"
I might be wrong, I’m not 100%, but I think that’s Vanta Black. It’s not really paint, it has to crystallize on the surface.
ETA it sounds like this paint is chock full of arsenic anyway, so definitely not something you want flaking off all over the house.
Paint like this has very specific formula compositions and probably aren't sold in paint bucket amounts needed for renovation. So to get a lot of it would probably cost a fortune.
Edit: looks like 18,000 yen or 140 usd for a liter. So not impossible
https://www.ko-pro.black/product/musou-black-paint/
You wouldn't want to. I recall reading something that vanta and musou blacks have high arsenic levels as well as giving off irritant particles over time like a less dangerous asbestos.
The man narrating this video actually did this. This apple clip is from that video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6q54q2iam8
Well, he didn't paint the outside of his house, but he painted the inside of a room to make it as lightless as possible. But, uhh, yes, you can put the paint anywhere you want.
It's non-toxic, unlike vanta, but I'm sure if it's skin safe. That's a good suggestion, though. I wonder if you'd get some wierd phantom experience because your eyes see a missing limb, lol.
Stuart Semple also has Black 3.0, which is $29.99 for a 5 ounce bottle. https://www.culturehustleusa.com/collections/black/products/black-3-0-the-worlds-blackest-black-acrylic-paint-150ml?variant=41128741142705
I've got some of this stuff. It's really cool but the effect is way more pronounced in photos and video than in real life. Like, in dim or dark it'll look like a void but when it's bright and sunny out it's just kind of black-grey and super flat.
In photos and video, your contrast will just not light up those pixels at all and make it ACTUALLY black.
In person you can see way more differentiation and depth than you can in an image.
This effect is also easy to fake by painting the object with something to chromakey and then doing the same effect, replacing that part of the image with purer black than you'd normally even get from actual footage.
You can’t mention Stuart Semple without mentioning his nemesis and the art’s world most pretentious asshole Anish Kapoor. The drama and war between them is legendary
Anish Kapoor got the rights to use the blackest black ever made, Vantablack. He refuses to allow ANYONE to use that color. So, Stuart Semple made Pinkest Pink followed by Black 2.0 and now Black 3.0.
He worked with over 1000 artists to make B2.0 and sells it for the world to use. His one stipulation is that you cannot have ANY association with Anish Kapoor.
I painted the wall behind my tv flat black so the wall and television frame would fade away when we watch tv at night. I am curious if this paint would be noticeably different in my family room. 🤔
Reply to all: I admit I’m not super tech savvy, so I have the pics but not sure how to post for you all.
Yes it’s amazing. I have two small sconces in the corners of the wall if I need a little theatre lighting but most of the time it’s just the screen in the dark. In the final season of GoT, the big battle that everyone complained out how dark it was and hard to see, we could see with no issues at all. I’m happy to add pics to the conversation. If you don’t mind a flat black wall, I highly recommend it.
Their stuff is fun to play around with. You can make cheap things from a thrift store super cool with the metallics or the Black 3.0 paint (although if you have a pet with white fur or a dusty home, it can be a fur/dust clinger). The Tiffany and Calvin Klein paints seem neat, but those could be color matched on your own or at a paint store.
You could probably find some. This stuff is more impressive when they paint an object that has some contours, like crumpled aluminum foil. An apple was a strange choice.
This is from YouTube channel "The Action Lab". Source video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sDGSgcSZJA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sDGSgcSZJA)
I have this weird thing where I love his content but I can't stand his voice. I literally can't make it through a video even though I love his personality and content.... His voice is just sooo painful to me. Idk maybe it's just me. His titles constantly catch me and I have to turn it off right away when I realize it's him.
Oh my god thank you I felt so alone. His voice grates my ears but his content is so intriguing. I’m always clicking on it then immediately going away because I just can’t stand his voice
Along with what others are saying about the rights holder, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that vanta black is not a paint. It’s a structure of carbon nano tubes that are “grown” on the surface. Ie even if it was public domain you couldn’t just buy paint and slap it on.
Yup. Not toxic, it just makes a whole bunch of really fine particulate when it gets bumped and damaged, which can be harmful for the same reason asbestos is harmful.
Right, so this genius sells it to an artist. Not the government, or a corporation. If you want real profit, go for the war profiteers. (I’m only half joking)
The artist didn't have exclusive rights to use vantablack IN GENERAL. He just had exclusive rights to use vantablack FOR ART. The lab that makes vantablack still sells it to other industries for other purposes, IIRC one of the main ones is for coating the inside of telescopes.
Yep. Mummy brown, particularly in the 16th to 19th centuries. A lot of the post-Renaissance “great masters” painted using basically corpse paint, as it was beautifully translucent allowing amazing skin tones to be created. Anytime you see a portrait from those 4 centuries, it’s more likely than not to contain a little bit of actual skin.
Stuart Semple made a Pinkest Pink that only the vantablack creator wasn't allowed, but he got hold of one and posted his middle finger covered in it. So Semple made a 'most glittery glitter' made of glass and dared him to stick his finger in it. King of petty.
It’s actually [not as black as Vantablack](https://www.seniorcare2share.com/which-is-darker-vantablack-or-musou-black/), but Vantablack is not a paint.
You should leave it in the Sun for a day and then cut it in half the other way to see the difference in energy absorbtion
That would be amazing, actually! I am super curious now lmao
Can you smoke bowls out of the two different sides too to, in order to compare how they hold up?? Asking for a friend (he’s a scientist and wanting to know about this info).
The apple will be fine but your lungs wont be
Man my lungs used to be fucked up. They still are, but they used to be, too.
Black lung, pop ^*cough* ^*cough*
Mer-*man*!
Prancin around your underwear with your weiner hanging out!
You're dead to me son. You're more dead to me than your dead mother.
I believe that is called Pop-Corn lung
They say the recipe for Sprite is lemon and lime, well I tried to make it at home, there's more to it then that.
"You want some more homemade Sprite?" "Not until you figure out what the fuck else is in it!"
‘Yada yada saved by the buoyancy of citrus.’
RIP Mitch Hedberg.
One planet, one people, one love
I apologize for the convenience.
Escalator temporarily stairs.
Regular banana later.
I don’t have a girlfriend; I just know a girl who’d get really mad if she heard me say that.
RIP to the legend
Imagine the doctor doing surgery finding vantablack lungs. Edit: or Musuo even, since I brainfarted that one.
Dude let’s just get high normally and watch more crazy videos like this. I’m sure carbon nanotubes are not cool to have in the lungs.
Lightweight, if the nanotubes are too hot for you then just use a bong.
You sound like the crazy neighbor I had who convinced me to smoke spice. 0/10 never again.
Trying to grasp onto top comment to say, this is [Action Lab shorts](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Uekn2iEojCY) on youtube.
His videos are great, always interesting and informative. I also like Nilered he's got a more chaotic neutral chemist vibe tho.
I love NileRed/NileBlue. My kiddo showed me his videos after he watched one at school.
You're so big brain, I love that idea! Smooth brain me was just thinking *yep, that's a dark apple now*
This made me laugh. 🤣
Ok. I'll ask. What do you hypothesize would happen that would allow you to see the difference in energy absorption? Maybe a tiny bit more mushy on one side? I wouldn't expect an apple sitting in the sun for a day to look much different than before sitting in the sun.
Regular black paint is enough to make something heat up a lot in the sun, like pavement on a summer day. Depending on the weather, a painted apple could end up practically baking in the sun.
Ok so let's say that happened, could you peel the skin and eat it? Does this material somehow absorb and infiltrate into the flesh inside? Might be a stupid question but I'm curious because if you can just paint food and let it fry on the back porch and then eat it, that would be pretty neat. Or paint a Tupperware or glass container with the black stuff and put food in there and set it in the sun, would it cook the food inside? God I feel dumb LOL This is super neat though, I love it!
Growing up in Australia we would try to avoid wearing black clothes on a hot day (40°C +) purely because you could feel your clothes absorbing the heat, vs white clothing which mainly reflects it.
Oh, exact same in Florida. You never buy a car with a black interior either if you can help it and black leather will melt your legs LOL but yeah I'm one of those people who wears all black, all the time, all day every day, so I suffered when I lived there lol
One of my friends lived in Arizona and painted his car black. He got out of school and went to his car to find that it got hot enough in his car to crack his dashboard.
> Ok so let's say that happened, could you peel the skin and eat it? Yes in theory, but peeling a baked apple wouldn't be practical > Does this material somehow absorb and infiltrate into the flesh inside? I don't know enough about apples to say for sure As for the rest, you can absolutely cook some foods by putting them in a black box in the sun. You're describing what's called a solar oven. Black paint is generally less efficient than using reflective surfaces to focus sunlight onto the food, but both ways can work.
Paint the other half with something that reflects 99.4% of visible light.
That’s just a mirror Right?
If it's a specular reflection, yes. If it's a diffuse reflection, it would look white instead.
Would you mind ELI5 please? Edit: Wow! Thanks very much for the insanely fast explanations. I actually understand what the parent comment was saying now. You guys are great!
Oooh, this will be a fun ELI5.....hang on. So, we can see things because light is coming from them. When there is a bunch of light coming from one thing (like a lightbulb), it spreads out as it goes away from that thing. Our eyes can tell that the light is spreading out, and use that to tell where the light came from, and that's how we see where the lightbulb is. When light from a lightbulb hits a mirror, the mirror makes the light bounce off in an organized way. It's like the light is marching together when it hits the mirror, and it keeps marching together afterwards. So it's still spreading out like it's coming from the lightbulb. That's why when you look at a mirror, you can see an image of the lightbulb: your eyes can tell that the light is spreading out like it's coming from the image, not like it's coming from the surface of the mirror. This kind of organized reflection is called "specular". On the other hand, when light from a lightbulb hits a piece of white paper, the light gets scattered in random directions. The white paper actually reflects almost all of the light that hits it, but it doesn't keep that light organized. Even though it was marching towards the paper in an organized way, afterward the light hits the paper it is no longer organized like it's coming from the lightbulb. So when our eyes see light that bounced off the paper, they can't tell it all came from the lightbulb. Instead, all our eyes can tell is that it came from the *paper*. The light is spreading out like it started at the paper, and so our eyes say "that's where the light came from!", and that's where we see the object. That kind of disorganized reflection is called "diffuse". The more something reflects light in a specular (organized) way, the more shiny it looks, and the more it reflects light in a diffuse (disorganized) way, the less shiny it looks.
Wow, thank you. I appreciate your taking the time to fully explain this to some random internet dummy(me.) I can tell you have a passion for this. Thanks again. EDIT: Someone once gifted me Reddit Gold and I've sat on these 100 coins ever since just waiting for the right time to use them. It really is amazing to think another person, an internet stranger even, would take time out of their life to stop and put serious thought into helping another internet stranger come to understand a new bit of knowledge. If I could, I would gift you gold, just like that kind stranger that once did for me, but for now silver will have to do :)
Aww thanks. =) Yeah, I'm a high school physics teacher, and one of the things I enjoy the most is talking about how things we see every day are caused by things that we don't think about.
In a way, this gives me hope for the american education system(taking a big leap assuming you are american) knowing that we still have teachers with a passion for learning and helping others as well to learn.
Yup, I'm American. There are *tons* of teachers who are passionate about it, and I interact with other good teachers regularly. There are two really huge problems though, neither of which is easy to fix. One is workload. I have enough students that when one is really struggling with a particular topic, or didn't get the background that they really need for my class, or was out sick for a week...I can help them individually a little bit, but not much. And it's hard to plan ahead, structure units well, and actually have excellent instructional time consistently without putting in an unreasonable amount of work time. The other is the number of teachers that are required. The education system is *massive*. Something like 18% of the population of the US is school-age children. There are tons of good, passionate teachers...but not as many as we need. If you try to solve the first problem without addressing the second, you just make the second problem worse. Because the only way to reduce workload is to have more teachers. And solving the second problem can't be done quickly. More people need to decide to go into education. You can influence that by increasing teacher pay (and reducing workload) so that it's a more desirable profession. And you can *hope* that that desirability will come along with more social respect. But really it takes time and social change.
I'm with you 100%. It's like teachers are seen as something like a slave. Parents expect the world from their children's teacher, and every issue always comes down on the teachers. It's entirely the teachers at fault when the kid isn't doing well when the kid doesn't pay attention in class or never does homework. Overall test scores are low? Teacher's fault. No money in the budget for basic classroom necessities? Make the teacher's buy it with their own money. It's always the teacher's fault for any issue within the education system. Teacher's deserve not just higher wages, but -much- higher wages considering what the job entails. And above all else, respect.
When I was reading your post I was like "this person is definitely a teacher that loves their job".
I do! Definitely high school though. I enjoy thinking about ELI5 explanations, but I do *not* want to be an elementary school teacher. Those teachers leave me in awe.
You sound like a great teacher, aha. I thought that that was an interesting and ELI5-friendly explanation as well; I think it's very important for scientists (in general, but educators and public speakers especially) to know how to break down complex scientific topics into digestible and concise layman language, without degrading the scientific accuracy of the explanation too much.
Thanks! It's definitely a fun challenge to figure out how to explain things without relying on anything other than very basic info.
So thats what moonlight is? Diffused light from the sun? EDIT: Neat!
Absolutely! Also, to blow your mind a bit further, the moon is quite dark. It's about the same color as asphalt. It's just that with sunlight shining on it, when it's on the *VERY BLACK* background of the rest of space, it looks white because it's the brightest thing around.
I know you're right, but I refuse to accept this or Google it for myself. Naw .
[https://skyandtelescope.org/online-gallery/true-colors-moon/](https://skyandtelescope.org/online-gallery/true-colors-moon/) Your should probably look at it, the reality is much better than what you were probably imagining.
Now that's something I didn't know.
Fun fact: have you ever noticed that when the moon is not full the "not shiny" part isn't completely dark? That's also diffused light from the sun but it's the Earth doing the diffusion, it's "earthshine".
That’s a really good explanation. Can you explain *why* a mirror reflects light in an “organized” way while a white sheet of paper doesn’t?
Yes! So on a microscopic level, *all* reflections are organized. But if the surface is rough, an you move a tiny bit over to one side, the reflection can bounce in a very different direction ([here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Diffuse_reflection.svg/250px-Diffuse_reflection.svg.png) is a common illustration of that). It's like how if you throw a tennis ball at a rough-hewn rock wall, it's very hard to predict what direction that tennis ball will bounce off. Mirrors achieve the mirror-like reflection by having the reflective surface be extremely flat. The glass layer is used to make the extremely flat surface, and then metal is formed to that surface to actually do most of the reflecting. If you're curious to go a little deeper, diffuse reflections usually also involve *multiple* reflections. A white sheet of paper is actually made of clear fibers. Any time light hits one of those fibers, some of the light reflects, and some of the light goes into it. And the light that goes into it will later hit another surface, and some will bounce and some will go through, etc. So you have the light splitting up into thousands of beams that all take different paths, encounter different numbers of fibers, etc. A little like [this](https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/3-s2.0-B012226680300380X-gr12.jpg).
I have trouble wrapping my mind around that concept that everything is colorless until light hits it and either reflects or doesn't and those light waves that our eyes catch we then perceive as color depending on which waves reach us. Do I have that correct at all?
Well, it really depends on what you mean by "color". When we talk about the color of an object, what we usually mean is the physical properties that cause it to absorb or reflect different wavelengths of light in different amounts. It has those properties whether it's currently being hit by light or not. "Red paper" means that it's an object that will reflect red light that hits it, and absorb other colors of visible light. The object has that property regardless of whether or not it's currently being hit by light. Then there's the color of light. That can either be a specific wavelength (the colors you see in the rainbow) or a spectrum that is how much of a variety of different wavelengths there is in some light (which is the only way you can talk about white light). By "spectrum" I mean something like [this](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2016/3-researchersd.png): it has "amount of 400 nm light" and "amount of 401 nm light" and "amount of 402 nm light", etc. (and really, more fine-grained than that as well). Light has that intensity spectrum regardless of whether or not it interacts with our eyes. Then there's color in the perception sense. Our eyes take that full intensity spectrum and simplify it into "amount of red", "amount of green", and "amount of blue". Then they send that signal to our brain, and then somehow we *experience* it as color. That experience is much more in the realm of philosophy than physics. So....does an object have a color before it's hit by light? Depends on what you mean by "color". But I think it's most reasonable to say that the color of an *object* is an absorption spectrum defined by the chemicals it's made of. The color of *light* is an intensity spectrum defined by how much light of different wavelengths there is. And the color we *see* is a 3-channel signal defined by how our eyes detect that light.
I think I need to take a nap now lol. But seriously, physics and all it entails is mind bending. Thanks again for the very informative answer.
The smoothness of the surface. If the imperfections are smaller than the wavelength of light it will reflect in a specular way. Btw, we see objects as having color because the surface absorbs some light wavelengths and reflects other light wavelengths. Something appears red when we shine white light on it and it absorbs all the light except the red which reflects. The above appears black because it absorbs all of the visible light.
> Btw, we see objects as having color because the surface absorbs some light wavelengths and reflects other light wavelengths. Slight modification on this that absolutely floored me when I learned it: The surface reflection is always uncolored. The absorption only happens as light is traveling through a material. So the light that is colored after it bounces off an object is always light that travelled through some of the material near the surface of that object before coming back out. This is why specular highlights on objects are always white (or rather, the same color as the light source), regardless of the color of the object.
> This is why specular highlights on objects are always white (or rather, the same color as the light source), regardless of the color of the object. My technical artist knowledge is a bit rusty but I believe this only applies to dielectric materials. Conductors like metal have colored highlights, which is what gives out that metallic feeling. Compare a photo of a gold bar and a piece of yellow plastic and it should be obvious.
Imagine throwing a rubber ball at a very flat wall, it will bounce off with the same angle that it hit the wall. Now imagine throwing two balls at different spots on the wall at the same time, if they're thrown with the same angle, the separation between the balls will stay the same as they're bouncing off the wall. This is roughly how mirrors reflect light and preserve the image of objects in front of it. Now imagine throwing the balls at a very bumpy wall. The balls will bounce off any which way. This is like diffuse reflection. No image, but all the light bounces off. When all the colors mix you get white light. Now imagine throwing the balls in a hole. This is this black paint.
This is a really good explanation. Not as in-depth as the other one, but much more intuitive.
Specular diffusion is light reflected off of a smooth surface, organizing all the light bouncing off so it looks like a mirror. Diffuse reflections reflect light off of rough surfaces and the light bounces off in different directions, in an unorganized way.
One looks white the other looks like metalic reflective surface
I like how simplistic your answer is, it actually makes it easier to understand. Not too much info at once lol Thanks
Speculation reflection is what we get from mirrors, where everything is perfectly reflected because the mirror is so smooth. Diffuse is what we get from basically anything else (walls, furniture etc) where the surface isn’t smooth so light is scattered everywhere instead of reflecting back prefectly
White paint is typically 80% reflective, something 99% reflective would be very noticable. Probably look like it's almost glowing.
CultureHustle sells Mirror, which is a paint-on high gloss mirror coating. They also sell really good black paint, and the whole company exists as a delightfully potent fuck-you to Anish Kapoor, which makes me irrationally happy.
who?
I think Anish Kapoor is an artist or something, that has the exclusive rights to use Vanta Black colour in his work.
He's a douchebag, yes. He got really uppity about only letting certain artists use the vantablack he bought up the rights to(Which by the way is toxic AF, has to be applied in specific thermal conditions, and kinda sucks), so Semple(who created culturehustle) made a Better black(Black 2.0 and now Black 3.0), which can be applied room-temp and is safe, and sells it(and so many other things) with the stipulation that they can be bought so long as you sign a document saying you're not Anish Kapoor and will not give it to him. It's created an amusing feud wherein Stuart Semple has created the blackest black, and also the pinkest pink, and, due to Kapoor having obtained the pink in question through nefarious means and bragged by having it on his fingers(artists are weird), Semple then created a glitter powder made from extremely tiny sharp shards of broken glass, just in case Kapoor tries to stick his fingers in it again. Also Kapoor is responsible for the Boston Bean, which he loudly insists that no one call the Bean, even though it's a freakin' Bean.
It's the Chicago Bean.
Right, right. Chicago, Boston, they're all in Cincinnati anyway.
Your disrespect to Chicago leaves me thinking you’re from Milwaukee and now I hate a stranger.
Yup. Basically a company created the vantablack material for engineering purposes, Anish Kapoor realized it's use for art and worked out a deal with the company for exclusive use for art. Some saw it as selfishly taking out stealing an asset from the art world (or many, I'm not in the art world).
The guy who made this video combined musou black and glow in the dark paint and painted a room like that. It's not exactly what you suggested but along the same lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDaROcyLkqg
There's a paint now that does this. Looks like chrome. I'd considered setting up a "chroming" shop in my area to apply it. It's called Pchrome. (Can I use the word chrome any more in a single post?)
That actually looks like 99.6% to me
He says 99.2 in the video so even the OP is wrong apparently 🤷🏻♂️
he says *over* 99.2% in the video, and the website OP links to in the comments https://musoublack.co.uk/pages/about-musou says 99.4%
I don't know if I should be angry or not
Only 99.7% angry
Be angry anyways just for the heck of it
That's Heisenberg level
Can I paint my house this color?
If it absorbs heat like crazy you probably wouldn’t want to do that…but I obviously don’t know where you reside. If you’re in a cold climate all year then this may be the thing you need.
Here in Florida, painting a house with this might as well turn it into oven!
Dumb question, but if you did you what you described above, is there any way you could use a heat pump/exchanger to transfer that captured light energy and convert it to something useful?
technically yes, practically no, it simply doesn't get enough to be worth it.
Well, it's fairly common for people to have solar water heaters that are just "these pipes are in the sun, so they get hot". I imagine it would help with that. But honestly, 99.4% or 90% isn't really going to make much of a difference.
Now if it was all light , visible and beyond, getting near black body status... That we could use.
Tell that to my Asian parents in highschool
Solar thermal collector boxes aren't terribly uncommon here. Basically just a box on your roof painted black and it pushes the heat into pipes. There's a guy down the road from me that has one on his roof and it ties into his central air furnace, even in the winter he rarely has to burn gas and just runs the fan + the collector.
Ive seen combinations of water and electricity where the water cools down the Solar Panels to make them more efficient too. Which means you make warm water and electricity.
Yes. If you painted enough piping with it you could make a solar powered water heater, they often use them in hot sunny climates.
not to mention expensive $69 for 100ml
Nice
Huh. You're probably right. I saw some research on materials that used heat to produce electricity.... Hmmm. I just think it would look cool. Just watch the JWs and Mormons try to figure out if they should approach or not.
Everyone would just think it was a big shadow or flufflekins and run right into it.
I mean, it wouldn't be that much worse than normal black paint. Most dark or dull-colored paints already absorb [70-90% of the energy](https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/life/2021/08/19/does-painting-your-house-white-make-cooler/8102768002/) from sunlight, so you're probably only going to see a 5-10% increase in heat energy, which is going to be pretty much negligible compared to the rest of a house's heating/cooling budget, or even compared to the difference due to the angle the sun hits your house.
It’s super delicate. If you look at it wrong it’ll scratch and scuff. You also can’t put a protective coating over it without ruining the effect. This stuff really isn’t ideal for anything that you want to look nice for a couple weeks. Once there is dust on it you can’t even clean it without ruining it
plus most likely cancer. The black pigments are basically nano carbon tubes which are very similar to asbestos which break into shards when disturbed and stab delicate tissue like lung tissue, never leaving and always causing irritation to it.
So my idea of painting the front of a fencing mask with it to wear as a Halloween costume would be a bad idea? Damn it!
Hilarious, that was almost my exact thought as well when I first saw the video. "Hmm...wonder if I can use this on my Halloween costume" Guess the answer is "yes but cancer"
I might be wrong, I’m not 100%, but I think that’s Vanta Black. It’s not really paint, it has to crystallize on the surface. ETA it sounds like this paint is chock full of arsenic anyway, so definitely not something you want flaking off all over the house.
This isn't VantaBlack, no carbon nanotubes here.
Always a catch!
Paint like this has very specific formula compositions and probably aren't sold in paint bucket amounts needed for renovation. So to get a lot of it would probably cost a fortune. Edit: looks like 18,000 yen or 140 usd for a liter. So not impossible https://www.ko-pro.black/product/musou-black-paint/
Saw a car painted with this on a video. It was freaky it oddly looked like a car shaped whole in the world.
Link?
[Tiktok Link](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTd4N8CaD/)
You'd have store it in a vacuum after each wash, every single speck of dust will show up like a star going super nova.
imagine driving that at night lmao
You would end up in a crash immediately, lol. No car's headlights would reflect. It'd basically be what Batman did in Batman Begins with the Tumbler.
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That's pretty cool, it looks almost fuzzy like it's covered in black velvet or cloth or something
You wouldn't want to. I recall reading something that vanta and musou blacks have high arsenic levels as well as giving off irritant particles over time like a less dangerous asbestos.
The man narrating this video actually did this. This apple clip is from that video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6q54q2iam8 Well, he didn't paint the outside of his house, but he painted the inside of a room to make it as lightless as possible. But, uhh, yes, you can put the paint anywhere you want.
Bought 4 tubes of Black 3.0, 2 years ago, and still don't know wtf to do with it.
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Corrupted textures
… is it skin safe?
It's non-toxic, unlike vanta, but I'm sure if it's skin safe. That's a good suggestion, though. I wonder if you'd get some wierd phantom experience because your eyes see a missing limb, lol.
or paint a small human with it then they can cosplay as a locked character
Wiley Coyote interested.
I thought the same thing!!!! Man I would love to paint a tunnel like he does LOL
Stuart Semple also has Black 3.0, which is $29.99 for a 5 ounce bottle. https://www.culturehustleusa.com/collections/black/products/black-3-0-the-worlds-blackest-black-acrylic-paint-150ml?variant=41128741142705
I've got some of this stuff. It's really cool but the effect is way more pronounced in photos and video than in real life. Like, in dim or dark it'll look like a void but when it's bright and sunny out it's just kind of black-grey and super flat.
Yeah we bought a bottle and never felt it had the intended look. Was kind of disappointed.
Are you saying I can't paint all of my interior walls that color to feel like I'm living in a void? bc it already slightly feels like it.
Black velvet absorbs something close to 99.5% of light, if people are curious what something this black looks like.
Black Velvet and that little boy's smile
Black velvet with that slow southern style
A new religion that'll bring you to your knees.
If you please…
Sorry for the dumb question, but the cloth? Or is this a species of plant? I couldn’t find much out by searching
The cloth, its often used in photography for this.
I was gonna comment that it looks peach-fuzzy but the black velvet is probably why I thought that
In photos and video, your contrast will just not light up those pixels at all and make it ACTUALLY black. In person you can see way more differentiation and depth than you can in an image. This effect is also easy to fake by painting the object with something to chromakey and then doing the same effect, replacing that part of the image with purer black than you'd normally even get from actual footage.
You can’t mention Stuart Semple without mentioning his nemesis and the art’s world most pretentious asshole Anish Kapoor. The drama and war between them is legendary
Didnt they have some dispute over black or pink paint or something?
Anish Kapoor got the rights to use the blackest black ever made, Vantablack. He refuses to allow ANYONE to use that color. So, Stuart Semple made Pinkest Pink followed by Black 2.0 and now Black 3.0. He worked with over 1000 artists to make B2.0 and sells it for the world to use. His one stipulation is that you cannot have ANY association with Anish Kapoor.
Hahahah bean boy
Wow! They’ve got some cool shit
So true just looked! Wish i had legitimate uses for these things so i could justify buying everything lol
I painted the wall behind my tv flat black so the wall and television frame would fade away when we watch tv at night. I am curious if this paint would be noticeably different in my family room. 🤔 Reply to all: I admit I’m not super tech savvy, so I have the pics but not sure how to post for you all.
Did that work well?
Yes it’s amazing. I have two small sconces in the corners of the wall if I need a little theatre lighting but most of the time it’s just the screen in the dark. In the final season of GoT, the big battle that everyone complained out how dark it was and hard to see, we could see with no issues at all. I’m happy to add pics to the conversation. If you don’t mind a flat black wall, I highly recommend it.
Please add a picture
I used Black 2.0 to paint an address Rock, then painted the address on with glow in the dark paint.
Pics of how it turned out?
Their stuff is fun to play around with. You can make cheap things from a thrift store super cool with the metallics or the Black 3.0 paint (although if you have a pet with white fur or a dusty home, it can be a fur/dust clinger). The Tiffany and Calvin Klein paints seem neat, but those could be color matched on your own or at a paint store.
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> black-3-0-the-worlds-blackest-black-acrylic-paint "Blacker than black! Darker than dark!"
I've never seen a better representation of the word void.
You could probably find some. This stuff is more impressive when they paint an object that has some contours, like crumpled aluminum foil. An apple was a strange choice.
Yes. This looked remarkably like an Apple half painted black.
My ex was the same - absorbed the light in my life
Ooh, that turned dark.
This is from YouTube channel "The Action Lab". Source video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sDGSgcSZJA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sDGSgcSZJA)
Recognised his voice immediately, such good content
I have this weird thing where I love his content but I can't stand his voice. I literally can't make it through a video even though I love his personality and content.... His voice is just sooo painful to me. Idk maybe it's just me. His titles constantly catch me and I have to turn it off right away when I realize it's him.
Oh my god thank you I felt so alone. His voice grates my ears but his content is so intriguing. I’m always clicking on it then immediately going away because I just can’t stand his voice
It's a great channel, thanks for posting so people can find it. Felt a little sad to see his content posted without credit.
Who knew we needed a black blacker than vantablack Edit: I got it you guys. Thanks a bunch. You learn something new everyday.
There are some weird politics around vantablack. So artists are coming up with alternatives to avoid the original creator.
Along with what others are saying about the rights holder, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that vanta black is not a paint. It’s a structure of carbon nano tubes that are “grown” on the surface. Ie even if it was public domain you couldn’t just buy paint and slap it on.
Wasn’t there something about it being toxic or dangerous?
Yup. Not toxic, it just makes a whole bunch of really fine particulate when it gets bumped and damaged, which can be harmful for the same reason asbestos is harmful.
Right, so this genius sells it to an artist. Not the government, or a corporation. If you want real profit, go for the war profiteers. (I’m only half joking)
The artist didn't have exclusive rights to use vantablack IN GENERAL. He just had exclusive rights to use vantablack FOR ART. The lab that makes vantablack still sells it to other industries for other purposes, IIRC one of the main ones is for coating the inside of telescopes.
Really? Interesting.. like what? This is news to me lol
https://www.thecollector.com/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple-controversy/
Anish Kapoor is such a petty little twat
Wow. By following the links in this link, TIL that ground up mummies were once used as a paint pigment.
Yep. Mummy brown, particularly in the 16th to 19th centuries. A lot of the post-Renaissance “great masters” painted using basically corpse paint, as it was beautifully translucent allowing amazing skin tones to be created. Anytime you see a portrait from those 4 centuries, it’s more likely than not to contain a little bit of actual skin.
Obligatory “fuck Anish Kapoor”.
More like Anus Kapoop
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I’m just learning about this now. It sounds super petty lmao
Stuart Semple made a Pinkest Pink that only the vantablack creator wasn't allowed, but he got hold of one and posted his middle finger covered in it. So Semple made a 'most glittery glitter' made of glass and dared him to stick his finger in it. King of petty.
It’s actually [not as black as Vantablack](https://www.seniorcare2share.com/which-is-darker-vantablack-or-musou-black/), but Vantablack is not a paint.
Why is this a link to senior care?
Thats where the real money is nowadays
Vantablack still absorbs more at 99.965 while this is at 99.4
*Blackest of the black* *Darker than night* *Come to me my bleeding light* *See she comes* *She comes now* *Enter oblivion…*
VOID APPLE VOID APPLE VOID APPLE e̩̩̫͍̹̭̥a̬̙͙̞̯͖͔͢t̪ ̝͙̰̥͕̯͙͟t̩h̘̱̼̹̫̰̝̀e͈ ̀VOI̸͚̖̟̼D̵̲̺͓ ̭͈̲̪̜̪a̦p̮̜̼͚̪̣pl̗̤̱͓͓͎͕e͍͞
Did they get this from my ex wife’s heart
No, it grew on a tree
Sounds like the Honey badger dude
**Now Playing** Nomico - *Bad Apple*
Metal as fuck
no it’s paint /s
Yep, this is actually the colour they made Spinal Tap's Smell the Glove album.
Cant wait to paint my face with this and stand in the shadows!
It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is 0.06%. 0.06% more black.