Skaperen said:
TL;DR Summary: If there is a "pile" of biological viruses where the pile is way large enough to be seen, optically, what color might this "pile" have?
what the "pile" might look like. would it absorb light and thus look black or would it reflect light and look white? could it have color?
Depends upon if the virus clump is crystalized or not.
For example, sugar, salt are clear when crystalized, but white when seen as a powder.
In geology, the test for certain minerals is the color of the streak test, which is the color of the powder form, as opposed to the crystalized form.
The above are 'simple' compounds compared to the chemical nature of viruses, so it isn't clear what one would see of the viruses - a much more complex makeup of chemicals - in crystalized form, where transmission, absorption, and reflection ( internal from inside the body, as well as external from the surface ), or in powder form where the light coming back to your eyes is scattered. The terms are specular and diffuse lighting from a flat or rough surface.
Also important is the location of the lighting source. For a comparison, clouds normally look white or dark, but at a particular location of the light source, internal reflections of the light within the water droplet produces many colours known as a rainbow.
Nonetheless, viruses have been grouped together and studied for quite some time.
Some virus groupings can form crystals, while others not.
I take you to Wiki for more info.
The site does show a picture of the tobacco virus crystal in two forms. Both crystals appear metallic, with one having a more gold appearance, and the other more steel like in my opinion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_crystallisation
Although, it should be said, the technique for study is uses X-ray crystallography, not visable light.
Even so, the pictures are of a virus crystal through a compound microscope.
Size of crystal.
Here they say up to 0.5 mm, and they all look similar to the salt crystals.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...he-presence-of-either-a-high-PEG_fig2_6362485
I imagine some crystalizing solution to be be entrained within.