Black is hot and white is not.

I've always grown up knowing black keeps you warm and white keeps you cool. In my I'm-So-Cool-I-Wear-Big-Pants-From-Hot-Topic phase, I would always burn up in the summer. Black leather and other materials always get hotter than white objects in the sun. Tennis players always wear little white outfits to keep cool.

The way we see light has to do with color frequency and reflections. Red objects absorb more light than yellow light. It's the frequency that is reflected from the object (not absorbed) that gives our brain a color.

The reason black gets its color is because it absorbs all light rays/colors. Just light if you were to mix all the paints together, it would get black. Black does not reflect any light, and because of that it is hotter. The more light it absorbs (including from the sun) the warmer that color and that black object become.

White reflects all light instead of absorbing any, which is why it lacks color. Because it reflects these light/heat rays, it stays cooler.





Proof? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White and science class in school that I remembered.