Visible light hits all of the atoms around us. Given the right energy, why don’t we see the light emitted after absorption of such light?
For example. White light from the sun hits a wall on a house from some angle. Since some of this visible light has the specific amount of energy necessary to cause electrons of the atoms of this wall to transition to a higher energy level, after such electrons return to their ground state and emit the same light in another direction, why don’t I see the emitted light? Instead, I only see reflected light. if the wall is made of red bricks, I know the visible light colors other than red were certainly absorbed and had such discreet amount of energy necessary for such transitions. If they had such discreet amount of energy, wouldn’t it be true that they’d get absorbed entirely by the electrons and not be converted into the atom’s temperature?
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Mostly because the emissions are at lower energy than our eyes can detect, as per the answer of Steve4Physics. Absorption also occurs in ways other than electron orbital changes, through molecular bond vibration resonance. These latter energies disperse as "heat", which can include emissions in long wavelengths but tends to involve conduction (contact transfer of energy). It is true that some emissions will be in the visible range, but the energy contribution of those emissions is low relative to the total light energy from the illumination, so it is, effectively, below the detection limit. It is there but your eyes are not sensitive enough to see it. It is pretty unusual for the excited electrons to delay the relaxation long enough to be apparent after removal of the light source. There are a number of substances that do delay that energy change and "glow" in the dark (delay the emissions for minutes to hours after the excitation). Most substances emit essentially immediate after excitation.
If a photon excites an electron from (say for example) level 1 to level 10, then when the electron decays back, it typically does it in smaller jumps, for example:
10 -> 8 -> 7 -> 5 -> 1 or
10 -> 9 -> 4 >1
There are many possibilties.
These smaller jumps result in the emission of infra red photons which are invisible. Some infra red is emitted from the object; some is absorbed raising the temperature of the object.
Hi so light comes in two distinct types direct light and reflected light. direct light you see from the source be it a light or the sun. an other is reflected light.
Because we can't see thermal energy. Absorbed light becomes heat