How come>>>?

Question

Why is it that when you look at the ocean, it appears to the color of Blue. But when you get some water from the ocean,it appears to be transparent. Why is this so?

Answer 1

the water is just reflecting the color of the sky at it's surface...its not blue if it's rainy

Answer 2

Actually, the blue color is perceived because water absorbs on the red end of the spectrum. This absorption is relatively small, so in a small sample the material appears transparent. It only appears blue when there is enough absorption of incoming light (which includes light reflected inside the water) to remove the red end of the spectrum.

Answer 3

This is an interesting question.

Many people think that the sea appears blue, because it reflects the colour of the sky, and others hink it is the other way around. In fact, neither is correct. Both the sea and the sky appear blue, because the air molecules (in the case of the sky) and the water molecules (in the case of the sea) 'scatter' the blue part of the light spectrum.

What this means is that the molecules react more with the shorter blue wavelength than the longer red and yellow wavelengths in the light. The blue wavelengths strike the molecules causing them to vibrate and 're-emit' the light. Because the molecules vibrate in all directions, the re-emitted light seems to be coming from all directions, and the water (or sky) appears blue. By contrast, the red and yellow light tends to pass straight through.

However, it takes a lot of water (and even more sky) for this effect to be noticeable (in the case of the sky, we are looking upwards through about 10 kilometres of sky, in the case of the sea, we need to be looking through several metres of water to notice the blue effect. If we look at a glass of water, the scattering effect is very slight, so to us the water seems transparent (in reality, it would be the faintest, faintest blue; too faint for our eyes to see).

With ice, the effect is more noticeable; which accounts for the intense blue we see if we look down a crevasse in a glacier, or down a hole poked in the snow.

Answer 4

What we see is what we think; not every living creature with eyes can see the same picture...It's widely spread believe that bulls should react to the red color; the truth is different: they see it gray...they attack the bullfighter not because of that red rug he's holding in his hands, but rather because they're already wounded by so called "picadors", which stick them with their spears...Human eye is one of the most complex in a world of living creatures, however in order to explain colors one has to turn towards physics, more precisely to light...Transparency ( white light ) consists of entire color spectrum from infra-red, which you can't see because it has too short wave length to ultra-violet, which in turn has too long length of waves to be seen by human eyes...Between them are all other colors of the rainbow...(that's right; in a rainbow you're able to see all existing colors visible to human eye ). Now, let's get back to your question: the color of the ocean watter as seen from the point of observer depends on light conditions of the skies above...In sunny weather it will sometimes bear that steel blue look, which will turn to gray in cloudy weather: in between you will see all colors ranging from dark to bright (even red if you look at it in a perfect sunset )...Every body made from substance reflects light: those which reflect most of the light are bright and those which reflect just little light are dark ( the body which reflects no light at all should be black and the one that consumes all of the light should be trensparent ( invisible ) Here is the answer to a question: why is that if you get some water in your hands, it apears to be transparent...

Answer 5

Of course it does reflect the color which is facing it but the color the which water reflects depens on the depth of water .
Shallow waters may seem brownish rather than blue because it is influenced by its bed. Stone ,mud or plants..
Ocean is so deep & we can not see its bottom so it reflects the sky above & mostly darker ...

Answer 6

i thought it was the reflection from the sky. =)