Gummy bears are a great way to bust one of the common misconceptions about light reflection. The misconception is this: most students think that color is a property of matter, for example if I place shiny red apple of a sheet of paper in the sun, you’ll see a red glow on the paper around the apple.
Where did the red light come from? Did the apple add color to the otherwise clear sunlight? No. That’s the problem. Well, actually that’s the idea that leads to big problems later on down the road. So let’s get this idea straightened out.
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Cool idea! The red laser may not be truly red, and the bear may have a tiny bit of red dye mixed in with the yellow-green bear, so it’s hard to be exact since this isn’t a perfect experiment. I am glad you found ones that did work along with ones that didn’t, because it shows you really what the real world is like (doesn’t work perfectly as it does in a textbook). 🙂
We bought a bag of Trolli Big Bold Bears for this experiment. We only had a red laser, and tried it on all the different colors of bears. No red came through the dark green or blue. Red light did come through the red purple and orange, which we expected. But the red also came through the yellow-green bear (One kid swears it’s lime green, and the other is positive it’s yellow). I wouldn’t expect red coloring to be in that bear. Are there any other explanations for this?
Hmm… I wonder if your red gummy wan more than one color, like light or dark red? Try other objects around the house and find one that the red laser doesn’t pass through at all (look for something green and transparent).
I tried a red laser light on a green gummy and the red light did go thru and looked the same as the red gummy.
We used a blue laser on a green and red gummy. Why does it show light green and light red through the gummy?
i got two more of them and it was so cool!
Why is it that light “colors” objects but melanin colors our skin and hair?