I have been following up on the possibility that the proximity of c to the integer three times ten to an integral power might not be the coincidence it logically seems but a manifestation of a subtle connection between water and light.
Crazy - possibly <grin> - but certainly fun - and a way of painlessly learning a lot more about the properties of water and light. 8-) One thing I remember from schooldays is that the refractive index for water is about 4/3. Here again we have a suggestive ratio, albeit only spot on for orange light at about 600 nm. There is some very useful stuff on refractive indices and the like at the following URL http://www.philiplaven.com/p20.html I found the most interesting graph was Figure 6 which shows the imaginary part of the refractive index, i.e. the measure of absorption. The really significant bit it the way it peaks at around 100 nm (shades of blacklight, eh!). It is not until the wavelength reaches the mm range that the imaginary part again comes as close to the real part. There is some intriguing, stuff on other pages of the site as well. For instance this rather macabre example of a glory: ================================================ http://www.philiplaven.com/p2c.html Fig. 4 may be the first image of a glory observed from space. It was recorded on 28 January 2003 by the MEIDEX (Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment) instrument on board the space shuttle Columbia - which tragically burnt up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere on 1 February 2003 resulting in the deaths of all 7 members of the crew. The MEIDEX Science Team at Tel Aviv University found this fascinating image whilst examining the results of MEIDEX and suggests that the term "Astronaut's glory" should be used "in honor of our friends from the Columbia crew". ================================================ Frank Grimer
