Why Clouds are White--Part 1.75
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| In the service of clouds: my latest library haul to answer a basic question. |
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| This is Richard Feynman's friendly question in his lecture, "Radiation Damping. Light Scattering." |
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| This was his unfriendly answer. I get it, but not really. So I found a different book. |
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| This is from Why the Sky is Blue by Gotz Hoeppe. |
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| As is this...which made some sense, but is certainly uncloudlike. |
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| This neat chart shows the relative sizes of particles in the atmosphere compared to wavelengths of visible light. |
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| Look how much bigger they are than... the lines at the top! Huh? |
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| I kept reading and was greatly encouraged by the "made simple" pitch. |
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| Oh, but it wasn't simple at all. In the penultimate paragraph of this long chapter , the author stated: "The reason is simply that these particles are too big to big to be electrically polarized as a unit by an incoming light wave, and this prevents them from becoming oscillating dipoles." |
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| This sure is simple. |
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| I think the answer might be in here. |
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| But I am going to need a shrinky drink. (Image source: wwww.victorianweb.org) |