How does light reach the photoreceptors in plants? Does it need to travel through the plant or are the photoreceptors on the surface of the plant ?
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1$\begingroup$ I'd like to see that video. Can you please provide a link? $\endgroup$– anongoodnurseAug 9 at 11:59
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2$\begingroup$ Quantum superposition has nothing whatever to do with time travel. You may have misunderstood what they were saying, or the video is tending towards the science-fiction end of things. Either way, it' doesn't sound like a good starting point for educating yourself about photosynthesis. As above, start with the Wikipedia article, then edit your question with what you need to ask. $\endgroup$– Jiminy Cricket.Aug 9 at 12:06
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$\begingroup$ @JiminyCricket The title of the video is “we are from the future” and if it is true that the photons are put into a state of quantum superposition then technically it is like time travel, because all the possible realities where the photon should collide with other particles will collapse, & not occur, so rather than time travel it’s more like future assurance, all possible realities in which it does not reach its destination do not become actual therefor it has already reached its destination before it gets to it $\endgroup$– Keegan DavidsonAug 9 at 13:17
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1$\begingroup$ The main thing about the video that is incorrect is the framing - the plants don't put the photon into quantum superposition and cause time travel of the information (nor are they near perfect efficiency)! It's a simple probabilistic function for the photo to reach a chlorophyll/photocentre. Yes, you could very weakly argue that "oooh we don't know where the photon is because it's quantum" which is sort of true, but it's much simpler than that. Lets imagine you had a million tiny ball bearings and a large board with lot of holes in it. Throw all the ball bearings at the board... cont $\endgroup$– bob1Aug 9 at 21:33
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2$\begingroup$ cont... Some hit and bounce off, a few go through the holes. The board is your leaf and the ball bearings are your photons. You must remember from basic atomic structure that atoms are mostly space - according to Dr Google, a Hydrogen atom is 99.9999...% space; if you could enlarge it to the size of the earth, the core proton would be about 200 m/600' (2 football fields long) across and the electrons circling around on the circumference of the earth. The forest analogy is more like running through the area of 37 football fields with 1 tree in the middle. $\endgroup$– bob1Aug 9 at 21:44
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The photoreceptors relevant to photosynthesis are the light-harvesting complexes. These are found embedded in the thylakoid membranes found within chloroplasts. To reach the thylakoid membranes, light from outside the plant must pass through the cell wall, cell membrane, cytoplasm, both membranes of the chloroplast, and some amount of chloroplast stroma. If the photosynthetic cell is not on the surface of the plant, the light would also need to pass through some number of intervening cells.
