Can somebody answer this in AP BIO language please
A pigment molecule absorbs at specific wavelength(s), meaning that when light of a specific wavelength is incident to the molecule only certain wavelengths are absorbed while others are transmitted. The spectrophotometer emits monochromatic light (light of only one wavelength) which passes through the pigment molecule and a detector determines the amount of light that is either absorbed or transmitted by the sample. This is done at wavelengths from the UV (180-330 nm) to the visible (330-700 nm) and the light that is either transmitted or absorbed is detected by the spectrophotometer and is able to be graphed with absorbance representing the y-axis and wavelength representing the x-axis. The resultant graph will depict the absorption spectrum of that particular pigment molecule. Hope that helps.
