Transparent materials can also be found in a variety of forms, including glass, plastics, and films. This results in a clear and sharp image of objects seen through the material. Traditionally this would have actually been a very thin layer of silver, though these days aluminum or a highly reflective polymer such as BoPET is much more common because it's a lot less expensive (and technically more reflective). Define Transparent Transparent is a term used to describe a material that allows light to pass through in a straight line, without any scattering or distortion.

The layer of reflective material behind the glass is best described in almost all house mirrors as 'silvery', which refers to a near colorless grey or white material with a very high reflectance. Some varieties uranium glass and cranberry glass provide some particularly visually striking examples of colored but transparent glass (note that the cranberry glass in that Wikipedia article is actually translucent not transparent, but this is due to the complex shapes of the pieces and not the color (cranberry glass is rather expensive, so it's more common to see complicated shapes made from it which tend to result in it not being truly transparent)).Ĭombining 'transparent' with 'colorless' accurately describes the glass found in most mirrors that use a layer of glass to protect the reflective material, though in more modern mirrors it may be an acrylic or polycarbonate layer instead of glass (resulting in a less expensive mirror, but you have to be more careful about how you clean it) The term 'transparent glass' by itself is ambiguous in that something can be colored but sufficiently clear to be considered transparent. The term 'white glass' evokes thoughts of either milk glass or frosted glass, typically implying that the glass is question is neither colorless nor entirely transparent. The current spelling (rare before the 19th century) has been influenced by the French form.'Transparent colorless glass in front of a silver reflective material.' Late Middle English opake, from Latin opacus ‘darkened’. Opacity can be quantified in many ways for example, see the article mathematical descriptions of opacity.ĭifferent processes can lead to opacity including absorption, reflection, and scattering. More extreme frequency-dependence is visible in the absorption lines of cold gases. For instance, some kinds of glass, while transparent in the visual range, are largely opaque to ultraviolet light.

Opacity depends on the frequency of the light being considered. Both mirrors and carbon black are opaque. Other categories of visual appearance, related to the perception of regular or diffuse reflection and transmission of light, have been organized under the concept of cesia in an order system with three variables, including opacity, transparency and translucency among the involved aspects. An opaque substance transmits no light, and therefore reflects, scatters, or absorbs all of it. Reflection can be diffuse, for example light reflecting off a white wall, or specular, for example light reflecting off a mirror. When light strikes an interface between two substances, in general some may be reflected, some absorbed, some scattered, and the rest transmitted (also see refraction). An opaque object is neither transparent (allowing all light to pass through) nor translucent (allowing some light to pass through). In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, shielding material, glass, etc. Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. transparency behind each panel is a star.

JSTOR ( February 2010) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Ĭomparisons of 1.

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Translucent vs transparent definition