Re:Why are plants green? To reduce the noise in photosynthesis
by sigmoid10 on Sunday October 02, 2022 @05:00AM
(#33054231)
It actually isn't. The dominant frequency of solar irradiation is dependent on choice of spectral variables and could just as well be said to be in the infrared, when plotted as a function of frequency. So with the same argument, plants would be better off reflecting that. Especially when you consider that absorption happens as transitions between energy levels (i.e. frequencies) in molecules. However, in truth it simply doesn't make sense to talk about point frequencies in a density distribution.
[1] https://www.oceanopticsbook.info/view/light-and-radiometry/l...
Re:Why are plants green? To reduce the noise in photosynthesis
by throwaway0asd on Sunday October 02, 2022 @06:33AM
(#33054704)
The math to compare colors is more simple than that: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#relativeluminancedef
Blue is a slightly higher frequency than both red and green but green has a dramatically higher luminosity. Simple arithmetic applied against that less simple luminosity formula allows for contrast comparisons.
Re:Why are plants green? To reduce the noise in photosynthesis
by sigmoid10 on Friday October 07, 2022 @04:08AM
(#33118587)
We're still talking about the solar power density here though. Ofc blue is a higher frequency than green, noone disputes that. But you can't technically say green is high(er) in the solar power spectrum.
Re:Why are plants green? To reduce the noise in photosynthesis
by Razengan on Sunday October 02, 2022 @06:16AM
(#33054619)
Hah I love these cycles of [dis]information and correction on Reddit/HN:
> Commenter A: [cool fact]
> Reader: Oh! Interesting!
> Commenter B: Actually no
> Reader: Oh...
Re:Why are plants green? To reduce the noise in photosynthesis
by Nomentatus on Sunday October 02, 2022 @01:51AM
(#33053240)
The energy of (one photon worth) of electromagnetic energy does indeed increase with frequency. So green is more problematic than the same number of red photons. But you're right that if there were few green photons coming in and a ton of red, red might be blocked, and green not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminosity