- #1
Ott Rovgeisha
- 76
- 5
An article in Wikipedia tries to explain pigments.
One particular section has the following:
"A wide variety of wavelengths (colors) encounter a pigment. This pigment absorbs red and green light, but reflects blue, creating the color blue."
Questions arise... They may see stupid, but please, bear with me. I am aware of quantum mechanical weirdness and etc. I do have my own answers about it, but I would love to hear other people's insigths, because it really interests me..
What is usually meant by "absorbs"? Not very clear.
What does the light, that is absorbed actually do with the molecules of the pigment.
If it heats it up, then it seems that the pigmentation phenomena is explained with quantum mechanics, and the heating up seems to be described with the help of electromagnetic idea of light.
If the absorbed light heats up the pigment, then it still is in a way re-emitted... as infrared, right?
Also it is not very clear how exactly does electromagnetic radiation make pigment molecules move faster:
Doesn't electromagnetic radiation cause the dipolarization of a molecule: therefore change its shape? Does the shape change cause the molecules to collide and that in turn makes them speed up chaotically?
If a pigment "reflects" a wavelength, isn't that kind of an absorption?
Can this be also modeled as electron cloud being accelerated with a certain frequency?
If there were only a few pigment molecules, very far from each other, not interacting almost. Do they still act the same way or is there a difference.
Can pigment molecules be used to cause scattering, similar to Rayleigh scattering? If so, why, if not, why?
One particular section has the following:
"A wide variety of wavelengths (colors) encounter a pigment. This pigment absorbs red and green light, but reflects blue, creating the color blue."
Questions arise... They may see stupid, but please, bear with me. I am aware of quantum mechanical weirdness and etc. I do have my own answers about it, but I would love to hear other people's insigths, because it really interests me..
What is usually meant by "absorbs"? Not very clear.
What does the light, that is absorbed actually do with the molecules of the pigment.
If it heats it up, then it seems that the pigmentation phenomena is explained with quantum mechanics, and the heating up seems to be described with the help of electromagnetic idea of light.
If the absorbed light heats up the pigment, then it still is in a way re-emitted... as infrared, right?
Also it is not very clear how exactly does electromagnetic radiation make pigment molecules move faster:
Doesn't electromagnetic radiation cause the dipolarization of a molecule: therefore change its shape? Does the shape change cause the molecules to collide and that in turn makes them speed up chaotically?
If a pigment "reflects" a wavelength, isn't that kind of an absorption?
Can this be also modeled as electron cloud being accelerated with a certain frequency?
If there were only a few pigment molecules, very far from each other, not interacting almost. Do they still act the same way or is there a difference.
Can pigment molecules be used to cause scattering, similar to Rayleigh scattering? If so, why, if not, why?