Absorption of Light

You have just seen that a light beam is reflected and diffused when it falls onto a piece of white paper. If the light beam falls onto a piece of black paper, the black paper absorbs most of the light rays and very little light is reflected from the paper. If the surface upon which the light beam falls is perfectly black, there is no reflection; that is, the light is totally absorbed. No matter what kind of surface light falls upon, some of the light is absorbed. Figure 2-7a.