• hirihit640@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    Cab you help explain it? I thought that the sky was blue because it reflects the ocean and because of rayleigh scattering, but do either of these affect the color of plants?

    • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      Wow, wrong, Do some research, but I will help if needed (seriously, DM me or whatever) but why not do it publicly, You’re asking the right questions and that counts for a lot.

      Reflecting the ocean is not a thing, but rayleigh scattering is a real reason for blue sky.

      Science rocks.

      • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        Deeper, I would simply say that the sky is blue because air is blue. You cite Rayleigh scattering, but you’re just describing how light interacts with air. The only reason any material has any color is because how it interacts with light.

        Air is blue. You can explain its blueness just like you can the physics origin of any other object’s color. But ultimately the sky is blue because air is blue.

        • Ech@lemmy.ca
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          1 day ago

          Steve Mould has a great video digging into why things look white: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gug67f1_8jM

          Probably not strictly translatable to all other colors, but a helpful illustration of how color is a result of the way objects interact with light, not inherent properties of the object itself.

    • phonics@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Plants are green because they absorb all other wavelengths of light. And bounce the green into your eye. In actual fact, color only exists in your brain as a way to understand the world around us. Our eyes are just sensors that detect light. And color is how we process it. We could have evolved into understanding it in different ways too, like smell. Therefore color doesnt even exist in the natural world. Green is just an illusion of our mind.

      • Trail@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Color exists physically as different wavelengths of light. The thing “in your mind” is about non-natural colors which trigger multiple light cones in your eye and your brain interprets them a certain way different than the natural colors. In that sense you do interpret the wavelengths one way or another in your head, but the actual light wavelengths so exist.

        • phonics@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Yeah wavelengths exist. But ALL color only exists in your mind as perception. Natural and non natural.

          If color existed outside of light touching your eye, you would be able to deduce it without light.

          Fun to think about.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      You’ve got it partially backwards. The sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering, but it doesn’t reflect the ocean; the ocean is blue because it reflects the sky.

      Incidentally, I’ve heard it said (I think it was xkcd) that we use the term “Rayleigh scattering” because it sounds silly to say that the air is blue (via the mechanism of Rayleigh scattering); so maybe that’s part of it?

      • Section Ratio General@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        The bit about the ocean being blue because it reflects the sky is unfortunately mostly wrong. Water is slightly more blue than ozone, so the more of it there is (big water in big ocean) the more blue it will look. The fact that it’s also reflecting the blue sky adds to the color, but on a cloudy day the ocean is still blue.