Why glass and ice are transparent?

Transparency is a property of a substance that is determined by the ability to skip light and depends on how the substance reflects, absorbs and dispels it. Through most of the solids, the light does not pass, it is reflected from them. For example, we see the table, but it does not seem to us clearly if again is not made of glass. On whether the subject is transparent or not, the radiation wavelength affects the length. When the radiation occurs in a specific spectral range, we are talking about transparency in this range.

The mechanism is simple: the light affects the charges in atoms and molecules of the substance so that those begin to fluctuate and re-erect it reflecting or refracted. Atoms absorb and emit light only on certain wavelengths. Therefore, in visible for us, the range (390-750 nm / 400-790 THz) – and this, by the way, the narrowest section of the spectrum – ice, water and glass are transparent. True, not always. All because they are often present impurities or foreign substances, such as dust, dyes and other solid particles that make a turbulent medium. So, when we say that the water is transparent, we mean "clean".

And it seems bluish, it seems due to the fact that weakly absorbs the ultraviolet range of the spectrum. While infrared radiation (it is also called thermal) and glass, and water absorb well. This can be illustrated by the following example: in summer, water in the river quickly heats up.