Answer 1:
I think instead of "reflecting" light,
electrons in an atom actually "absorb" and
"emit" lights at certain frequency and wavelength.
Inside an atom, our daily intuition about
"particles" does not really apply. The behavior of
electrons in an atom should be described by
quantum mechanics, which dictates that the
electrons can only have certain discrete
energies. So when the photon of light
carries precisely the energy that equals to the
difference between the two energy levels of an
electron, the electron will absorb this
photon, and jump to another energy level;
meanwhile, the electron can also jump back to
the original energy level, and emit the light with
certain frequency.
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Answer 2:
It's usually the chemical bonds that
reflect light, or, even more often, electrons
that are partially "free" and able to jump from
one atom to another. What happens is that the
electrons absorb the photons (light
particles), which changes their energy state, and
then the electron drops back to its lower
energy state, emitting the same energy photon
and thus the same color back away.
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