No self-respecting psychic will end their session without reading your aura. They will explain that aura is the energy your body radiates, and its color can say a lot about you as a person and a spiritual being. The color will vary from psychic to psychic, but they will put it down to your versatile personality and mood swings. If you insist on a particular color, they will gladly accept your choice as long as you pay. But if you ask about a relationship between energy and color, they will digress into the murky waters of chakras and higher dimensions, and you will leave none the wiser. So, is there a link between energy and color? And if there is, then how does it work?
Fig 1 Aura imitation. Credit: Radiant Human, Art photography by Christina Lonsdale.
All physical bodies, be they living beings like us or inanimate objects like stones, radiate energy in the form of light. We commonly think of light as something we can see. However, light has a much wider spectrum, including six additional bands invisible to the human eye (Fig 2). The physical quantity that defines each band is a wavelength. We don't have an intuitive understanding of the wavelengths, so I will replace it with a more familiar concept of temperature.
Fig 2 Full electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays. Source: BBC Bitesize
According to Wien's displacement law, a strong correlation exists between the body's temperature and the light it emits. For example, to radiate blue light, the body must have an astronomically high temperature of about 18,000°F (10,000°C). This is the temperature of blue Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky (Fig 3). As temperature decreases, the radiation shifts towards the red end of the visible spectrum. An example of the red star is Betelgeuse, which at 5800°F (3200°C) is significantly cooler than Sirius.
Fig 3 Blue Sirius and red Betelgeuse.
By Hubble European Space Agency. Credit: spacetelescope.org
With a further decline in temperature, the red glow starts to fade and gradually dissipates into non-existence. The photo in Fig 4 captures the eruption of Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica. The dark background provides a perfect setting for observing the colors predicted in Wien's law. Lava glows orange where it is hotter, turning red as it cools down. When lava cools to a temperature close to 1000°F (500°C), it starts crossing the boundary between the visible red and invisible infrared light. You can see some faint red specks close to the glowing flows, disappearing into complete darkness at a distance.
Fig 4 Eruption of Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica
By Matthew.landry at English Wikipedia
Moving down the temperature scale, we advance further into the infrared band. At 160°F (70°C), the home radiators emit the wavelengths that our eyes can't discern, though our skin can still recognize as heat. Human bodies can't measure up even to this level. At 100°F (37°C), the energy we radiate can neither be seen nor felt.
But what about "roses are red and violets are blue? After all, they aren't flames or stars. And how come that cucumber is green despite its reputation for being cool? They don't own those colors; they borrow them from light sources. When light from the Sun or a lamp shines on an object, it will absorb some wavelengths and reflect others. The kind of wavelengths the object absorbs will depend on its chemical composition. The wavelengths the object reflects will determine its color.
Red roses absorb all visible wavelengths apart from the ones corresponding to the red bunch. That is why they appear red to us. Cucumbers look green because they reflect green wavelengths, absorbing all others. Violets get their color by reflecting blue wavelengths with a touch of red. They all become invisible in the dark room, with no light to reflect. In the darkness, their presence can only be detected by infrared cameras, which capture invisible infrared radiation.
The same goes for our bodies. In the dark room, we become invisible because the light we radiate belongs in the invisible infrared band. The colors psychics claim to see are figments of their imagination. Science doesn't deal with a fantasy world, leaving it to poetry. When we say we feel blue or see red, we don't mean it literally. Science can't quantify emotions and express them in numerical values. If you want to think you're beautiful like a rainbow, you don't need to pay a psychic to tell you that. There is no connection between personality traits and colors. Beauty is in your heart. It's measured in good deals, not in wavelengths.
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