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Chemical Reactions

Kinetics and Thermodynamics

Why do some chemical reactions cause a color change?

The colors we see all have to do with what wavelengths of light something absorbs or reflects. For a chemical reaction to cause a change in the color of something, all that has to happen is that the products of the reaction absorb and reflect different wavelengths of light than the reactants do. We’ll discuss how light interacts with molecules in more detail in “Physical and Theoretical Chemistry.”