What Are Light-Absorbing Substances Called?

Transcript

Hello, my name is Walter Unglaub, and this is what are light absorbing substances called. Well, it turns out light absorbing substances are referred to as pigments. And most plants and flora have pigments. So what is a pigment here? Well we see this leaf and also the stem and the sun will emit light of all sorts of wavelengths or frequencies. Well, there's several pigments in a leaf for example, and in plants the primary pigment is known as chlorophyll, which is required for the process of photosynthesis where energy can be created due to this radiation and the generation of glucose in the plant. So it turns out that the reason most plants are green is because they don't easily accept green wavelengths. Chlorophyll, this pigment, primarily absorbs red and blue light, while it will reject most green light. So this is actually why plants are green, is because green wavelengths are not very efficient or useful for the photosynthesis process. My name is Walter Unglaub, and this is what are light absorbing substances called.

Walter Unglaub graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a B.S. in Engineering Physics and a M.S. Applied Physics.

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