Category: sunlight

Why do sunspots affect radio and TV reception?

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

Why do sunspots affect radio and TV reception?

Although I do not really know very much about the connection between sunspots and radio reception, I believe that the problem lies in with the solar wind. The solar wind is a steady stream of electrically charged particles that is responsible for the aurora, among other things. Since charged particles that interact with the earth’s magnetic field accelerate, they emit radio waves. These waves should cause reception problems on earth. If anyone reading this knows otherwise or has more information, please let me know.

If white color has a reflection close to one, what role does shininess or dullne…

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

If white color has a reflection close to one, what role does shininess or dullness play?

Just because two materials both reflect all of the light that strikes them doesn’t mean that they look the same. When you send a flashlight beam at a white surface, you can see that reflected light from all directions. When you send the flashlight beam at a mirror surface, you can only see the reflected light from one particular angle. Both the white surface and the mirror surface reflect virtually all of the light that hits them. A shiny white surface is different from a dull white surface because a shiny white surface has a small amount of mirror character to it: you can see the whiteness from any direction but there is also a mirror aspect that you can only see from certain angles.

Why do you sometimes see a circular rainbow surrounding a light?

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

Why do you sometimes see a circular rainbow surrounding a light?

It is most often caused by the bending of light by mist around the light or by flaws in the optical components through which you are viewing the light. Whenever light passes through a clear material, its path bends. In most cases, you only notice that the light is distorted by its passage through the material. But different colors (wavelengths) of light bend by slightly different amounts so that the colors of light sometimes appear to come from slightly different directions. That’s the origin of the rainbow you see.

Why do you think you see water on a road ahead of you when it’s not really there…

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

Why do you think you see water on a road ahead of you when it’s not really there?

On a sunny day, heat from the pavement can create a layer of very hot air at the surface of the road. Since hot air is less dense than cold air, its index of refraction is slightly less than that of cold air, too. As light from the sky enters this layer of low-index air, that light is bent. Light from the sky far out in front of you is turned upward so that you see the sky “reflected” from the road’s surface (actually bent upward by the air above the road’s surface). You interpret this sky light as coming from a pool of water on the road. But as you approach the road and look down at it, you see that the road is dry and black.