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That's just science (thelemmy.club)
submitted 18 hours ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 4 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

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?

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  • [–] 8 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

    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?

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  • [–] 7 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 12 hours ago

    I'm about a kilometer from the ocean right now (I'm standing in front of the window through which I can see it), and it's a partly cloudy day. When the sky is clear (as it was five minutes ago), the ocean is a rich, saturated blue or even teal. When it's cloudy (as it is currently), I can see that it's a cool gray color. I might call it a very dark, desaturated cyan at most. So from my observation it has to be the opposite: the relative blueness of the ozone and the water must be the less dependent factor, and the color of the sky the more dependent one.

    It's tricky, though. I guess I might be in a place with weird salinity or plankton or something.

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  • [–] 4 points 13 hours ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour 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.

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  • [–] 2 points 12 hours ago

    This is kinda away from the other replies to your comment. But I took that meme as saying plants get CO2 from the air (blue - scattering) and use sunlight (yellow - not really but meh) to produce many things with it, including chlorophyll which is the green pigment in plants.

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  • [–] -3 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 hours 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.

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