Is it possible to reflect light off of air?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Malaxus
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Air Light
AI Thread Summary
Light cannot be directly reflected off of air, but it can be refracted, which is how mirages are formed. Mirages occur due to the bending of light in varying temperature layers of air, not reflection. Introducing particles like smoke or dust can scatter light, creating a midair "screen" that reflects light back. Additionally, while air is less dense than materials used in experiments like Rutherford's gold foil, the vast amount of air can still scatter or reflect light to some extent. Overall, while direct reflection off of air is not feasible, light interaction with air can create visual phenomena.
Malaxus
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Is it possible to reflect light off of air? If so, what would it look like?
 
Science news on Phys.org
Mirages are produced by the refraction of light, not reflection.
 
Malaxus said:
Is it possible to reflect light off of air? If so, what would it look like?

Kind of. You can put some kind of material in the air, like smoke or dust, that scatters enough light back at you so that it serves as a kind of midair 'screen'. I don't know of any way to do something similar without adding something to the air.
 
You don't really need particles scattered in the air. atoms themseves can scater or reflect light. Earnst Rutheford showed this with his thin gold foil experiment. Air, of course, is much less dense, but of course there is miles-and-miles of it, depending on the "experiment" so the likeliehood is non-zero.
 
  • Like
Likes Chestermiller
Thread 'A quartet of epi-illumination methods'

Thread 'A quartet of epi-illumination methods'

Well, it took almost 20 years (!!!), but I finally obtained a set of epi-phase microscope objectives (Zeiss). The principles of epi-phase contrast is nearly identical to transillumination phase contrast, but the phase ring is a 1/8 wave retarder rather than a 1/4 wave retarder (because with epi-illumination, the light passes through the ring twice). This method was popular only for a very short period of time before epi-DIC (differential interference contrast) became widely available. So...
View full post »

Thread 'Effective absorption coefficient of gold nanoparticles'

I am currently undertaking a research internship where I am modelling the heating of silicon wafers with a 515 nm femtosecond laser. In order to increase the absorption of the laser into the oxide layer on top of the wafer it was suggested we use gold nanoparticles. I was tasked with modelling the optical properties of a 5nm gold nanoparticle, in particular the absorption cross section, using COMSOL Multiphysics. My model seems to be getting correct values for the absorption coefficient and...
View full post »

Similar threads

A Iphone Reflection has a pattern
Replies
2
Views
2K
B Shouldn't the refracted ray be along the boundary here?
Replies
5
Views
2K
A Reflectivity with gradient in refractive index
Replies
6
Views
2K
B Rainbow light reflection on TV from my hand
Replies
10
Views
768
A Optics: how gather and align light from a scene?
Replies
3
Views
1K
Why light reflected off of my calculator screen turns bluish?
Replies
3
Views
4K
I Outer layer refractive index - total internal refection on waveguide
Replies
2
Views
2K
I Newton's rings at an oblique angle of incidence of light
Replies
1
Views
1K
180 degree phase shift of reflected light
Replies
2
Views
2K
Calculating the degree of polarization of reflecting light
Replies
2
Views
2K

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top