Science Picture Challenge #3 Why lots of flowers are red 科學照片挑戰 #3 花兒為什麽這樣紅

That's right, my science picture of "red" is red flower. Red flower is very common, but full of science.

In nature, red or pink flowers are very common. But, have we ever wondered why?

In fact, the most color of flower in nature is white, followed by yellow and red. I believe that color of flower must be the result of evolution.

As we know, light of the sun is a mixture of light of many different colors, and different colors of the light wave have different wavelengths. And we can see the color of object, which is actually the color of reflected light wave of this object, and other light waves are absorbed by this object. White flowers should reflect most color of light. Our eyes receive a mixture of various colors of light waves, which is white. In the light of human visible light, wavelength of red light wave is the longest. I guess red flowers selectively absorb the light waves with shorter wavelengths, and reflect the red light with longest wavelength.

Light wave is the vibration of particle in space. And vibration means energy. Both white and red flowers are to minimize the absorption of light waves. In my opinion, they are to protect the flowers from harm of the energy of light.

In addition to self protection, there is another interesting thing related to red flower. In fact, flowers are the reproductive organs of plants, which require pollination insects such as bees, butterflies and moths to propagate pollen. However, bees, butterflies, moths is color-blind or color-weak. Moths are color-weak, who are insensitive to color. Some kinds of butterflies are red and green color-blind, even bees are red color-blind, who can 't see red, just like humans can't see infrared.

In the eyes of the bees, white may not be obvious. So, for attracting bees, white flowers are more fragrant. And for bees, the red thing is no light, maybe just like the black in the eyes of human beings. So, even if the bees don't see red, they can also recognize red flowers to help the red flowers finish pollination.

Perhaps in the eyes of the color-blind and color-weak insects, red flowers are most obvious.

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沒錯，本期我的科學照片就是——紅花。紅花很常見，但是有很多科學知識在裏面。

我們常用萬紫千紅來描述美麗的花朵，在自然界中，紅色或粉紅色的花非常常見。可是，我們有沒有想過這是為什麽呢？

事實上，自然界中花朵最多的顏色是白色，其次是黃色和紅色。我相信，花朵的顏色一定是自然進化的結果。

我們知道，太陽光是有很多顏色的光波組成的，不同顏色的光波具有不同波長。而我們可以看見物體的顏色，其實是這種物體反射的光波的顏色，其他的光波被這種物體吸收了。白色的花應該是將大部分顏色的光波反射出來，我們的眼睛接受到的是多種顏色光波的混合，所以我們感受到的是白色。在人類可見的光波中，紅光是波長最長的光。我猜想紅色的花朵會選擇性的吸收其他波長更短的光波，把波長最長的紅光反射出來。

光波是粒子在空間中的振動。而振動就意味著能量。白花和紅花都是盡量減少吸收的光波，我想是為了保護花瓣的組織不受光波能量的傷害。

除了自我保護，和紅花相關的，還有一件非常有趣的事情。花，其實是植物的生殖器官，需要蜜蜂、蝶、蛾等傳粉昆蟲來傳播花粉從而實現植物的生殖。可是，蜜蜂、蝶、蛾是色盲或色弱。蛾有些色弱，對顏色不太敏感，一些品種的蝶是紅綠色盲，蜜蜂根本就是紅色盲，蜜蜂根本看不到紅色，就像人類看不到紅外線一樣。

在蜜蜂眼裏，白色或許不那麽明顯呢。所以為了吸引蜜蜂，自然界中的白花會更香一些。而對於蜜蜂而言，紅色的東西就是沒有光的，我想和人類眼裏的黑色一樣吧。所以，即使蜜蜂看不到紅色，也可以分辨紅花出來，幫助紅花們完成授粉吧。

所以我覺得，或許在這些色盲和色弱的傳粉昆蟲眼裏，紅花也許是最明顯的顏色呢。