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Why green?
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Post by
346084
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Post by
Azazel
Probably.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Chlorophyll is green because green is the color it
doesn't
absorb. White light is what it and any other plant is absorbing.
Post by
346084
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
yeah I said that
"the fact that chlorophyll absorbs all wavelengths of light but reflects the green light"
If light is reflected it means it hasn't been absorbed :)
Which means, our atmosphere has nothing to do with chlorophyll being green.
Post by
457614
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Correct me if I'm wrong now, but if our atmosphere didn't allow green light to pass through, would that mean that no green light could be reflected and therefore leading to the plant not being green?
Technically, a green thing is still green when the lights are turned off, we just can't know it as such. Likewise if you start playing around with your light source, shining things other than white light, the object itself is still green.
It's green because it
can
reflect only green light, not because it necessarily is doing so at this particular moment.
Post by
346084
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Post by
Pwntiff
I was anticipating a discussion along the lines of
Solaris
, where science-fiction alien worlds are usually depicted as earth-like with humanoid dominant lifeforms, when this surely must not always be the case. Mostly, people want familiar aliens and biomes. If it's too far out there, it won't be popular...which sort of answers your real question.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
You're right in saying that the atmosphere has nothing to do with chlorophyll's colour, since our atmosphere (as stated above) allows all white light, including all of its components, to pass through. However, this isn't a guaranteed natural phenomenon on other planets. Some planets' atmospheres may not allow shades of green to go through, or perhaps may not allow blues to pass through. This is what I'm trying to say (forgive me for not making myself clear in the first place).
It would still be the same chlorophyll. Obviously if no green light could come in (unlikely in the necessary CO2 + O2 atmosphere needed for plant life), then anything that is green will look black. But that's an issue of perception, not an actual change in the plants themselves.
@Hyperspacerebel - what you're saying is correct. However, categorising objects by colour is actually a way of categorising objects by the colours they cannot absorb.
Which is exactly what I said, using "reflect" instead of "not absorb."
People occasionally argue that, if white light is not present, all objects do not possess a colour, but this is both correct and incorrect depending on which way you think about it.
I find it silly to define something that is objectively in the object with regard to something in the subject. Just like we don't saying an object stops existing when it goes out of sight, so too we shouldn't say an object stops being red (the objective chemical/physical make-up that allows it to reflect red light) just because we stop seeing it as such.
Post by
Adamsm
It's a god awful movie that doesn't care about science.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
If we can't observe the color of something, how do we know that there is a color to observe?
The same way we know that the rock is still there even after we lose sight of it. The universe follows certain laws.
Post by
204878
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
If we can't observe the color of something, how do we know that there is a color to observe?
The same way we know that the rock is still there even after we lose sight of it. The universe follows certain laws.
I think he's more meaning how do we know it has an objective colour (like how do you know what you see red as isn't what I see purple as). Yes,
colourblindness tests
can do this but how do we know this isn't just our eyes allowing us to differentiate the wavelengths but simulate them differently?
/Devils Advocate
What we subjectively call it is arbitrary. It still has the chemical/physical/whatever make-up that makes it reflect certain wavelengths of light. I might call it purple, you might call it blue, and a dog might call it dark gray, it's still the same objective color.
Post by
Bruunpala
It's a god awful movie that doesn't care about science.
It could totally happen! =O
I've been woking on a small project...
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571648
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269791
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