Why do electrons only absorb one specific frequency of light?

no it reflects it - giving it the color you see

>>8435031
What happens if another light source comes in contact?

>>8435012
photons of any energy can interact with an electron
one way they interact is by getting absorbed/emitted in discrete, quantized amounts. if a photon has more energy than is necessary to do this, it will still do it, and the extra energy will be conserved as kinetic energy (i.e. conservation of momentum)
if a photon doesn't have enough energy to bump the electron up to the next level, it can still transfer it's energy as kinetic energy (again, conservation of momentum)

>>8435034

I'm not entirely sure I know what you're asking, If you mean combining light sources to get a new wavelength, that doesn't work. Photons don't add together in that way. When you combine different color lights, you can see it's a different color, but that's just because of how your brain processes the the different wavelengths coming in at the same time. If neither sources are the right frequency, it won't get absorbed, no matter how many you add.

>>8435056
That's a really good answer actually.
So that's why opaque objects absorb all visible frequencies...

what determines the frequency that is reflected back out when the electron descends to the previous energy-state?

Like what determines the frequency is it the distance between the election and the next state such that the photon "carries" the electron there or is that just a bullshit speculation I came up with?

>>8435056
but what about transparent objects?

>>8435106
>what determines the frequency that is reflected back out when the electron descends to the previous energy-state?

There are set energy levels that an electron can be at, so the energy of the photon (a photon of a certain energy being of a certain frequency, of course) emitted will correspond to the difference in energy between whatever two states it is going between.

And yeah, this energy is going to be determined by distance, but the better question is what determines the distance between allowed eneryg levels ;)

>>8435144
I think for that one, the distance between energy levels has to do with the positive nucleus of the atom or molecule and how much charge is in it relative to the electron clouds and their negative charges.

Something that's really got me is tinted glass... so take glass that's tinted red right? How does it reflect red light back at the eyes to appear red yet at the same time let red light pass through to filter the light?

That's a really tricky one isn't it?

Anyone?

>>8435149
The reason they are red is because they reflect red light, but they are also transparent so looking through makes everything seem red.

>>8435245
but that doesn't explain why passing white-light through red tinted-glass will only let red-light through.

>>8435265
Red light doesn't go through it, it is reflected off of it onto everything, so when you peer through it (because it's transparent) all you can see is the red it reflects.