Can a leaf detect the difference in blue light coming from above and green light surrounding it? Can it detect the green and brown light surrounding it? The red light reflecting off a bird sitting above it?
If it’s sensitive enough to the different wavelengths a leaf wouldn’t really be all that much different from an eye.
All plant pigments are photoreactive in ‘some’ manner:
Its ancient dusty, pre-covid exposure memories, but I took a course as a graduate student covering the quantum physics of photosynthesis, and that’s basically what a leaf is doing. In the above image, the peaks on the left at around 400-500 can be thought of as blue light, and the peaks around 640-800 can be thought of as red light. Both of these wavelengths of light are involved in photosynthesis, which you can think of as in a manner, solar fusion in reverse. The plant has to take the light from the sun (the product of fusion), and get that energy reattached to a molecule. In fact, iirc, its basically the same electron orbital diagram. And it does make sense, because physically, that is what is happening.
These days I do much more boring stuff, but I always loved photosynthesis. Its probably one of my favorite chemical reactions. Nah fuck that it is my favorite chemical reaction.
So like, yeah. Plants have a TON of information about their environment. Granted, their photosensors don’t have lenses, but they are constantly gathering and reacting to information about the quantity, quality, and locations of light. Afa resolution? Thats like, actually a super interesting question. Not having a lens is a big drawback.
I do wonder the resolution that it could detect.
Can a leaf detect the difference in blue light coming from above and green light surrounding it? Can it detect the green and brown light surrounding it? The red light reflecting off a bird sitting above it?
If it’s sensitive enough to the different wavelengths a leaf wouldn’t really be all that much different from an eye.
I mean… yes?
Like that is kind of all a leaf is ‘really’ doing.
I dropped this mostly as a joke, but here is photosythesis:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/47117e3d-82e0-4325-816f-ed2c854d18b2.png
All plant pigments are photoreactive in ‘some’ manner:
Its ancient dusty, pre-covid exposure memories, but I took a course as a graduate student covering the quantum physics of photosynthesis, and that’s basically what a leaf is doing. In the above image, the peaks on the left at around 400-500 can be thought of as blue light, and the peaks around 640-800 can be thought of as red light. Both of these wavelengths of light are involved in photosynthesis, which you can think of as in a manner, solar fusion in reverse. The plant has to take the light from the sun (the product of fusion), and get that energy reattached to a molecule. In fact, iirc, its basically the same electron orbital diagram. And it does make sense, because physically, that is what is happening.
These days I do much more boring stuff, but I always loved photosynthesis. Its probably one of my favorite chemical reactions. Nah fuck that it is my favorite chemical reaction.
So like, yeah. Plants have a TON of information about their environment. Granted, their photosensors don’t have lenses, but they are constantly gathering and reacting to information about the quantity, quality, and locations of light. Afa resolution? Thats like, actually a super interesting question. Not having a lens is a big drawback.