Marble is translucent, the same as human skin. When they cover marble they lose all the the inner refractions, and it ends up looking like cheap plastic.

I'm not saying the statues weren't painted, but art historians ought to at least try truculent paints.

Interesting optical effect where refraction through the acrylic makes it look like the tip of the dome is off center...

I belive part of the trick is the fact that the screen is not that clear to begin with. It looked like a refracted window in a fairly murky water with little visibility, and at first I figured it was a lens trick so the aquatic life couldn't see in. The second part of the trick is "expecting something but in reality expecting to get nothing" when you pound on the glass, and suddenly SHARK.

It does not have to be about fitting into gamut, pink is a combination of blue and red light, which monitors are good at.

The problem with real world materials is that perception is not as simple as that. The combination of reflected, refracted, and even radiated (transformed wavelength) and polarized light, the micro-structure of the surface and possibly other properties can influence perception.

Like your favourite washing powder makes your whites whiter, this stuff makes pinks look pinker somehow. Its about fooling your eyes in specific conditions. You can simulate the difference between a known pink - a standard colour sample - and this awesome new pink by putting them side by side and calibrating the camera and monitor to show the new pink as pink and the reference pink as less pink, like at the end of the video, but that cant beat walking into an art gallery and seeing it with your own eyes. I mean probably, I havent seen this particular pink, but I have seen modern paintings which look nothing like their RGB or CMYK reproductions.

Your video, Refraction - Telephoto Timelapse Video, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Vimeo description:
Atmospheric refraction plays with the light of any object near the horizon. Here stars, startrails and the sun, filmed in timelapse photography from two major observatories in Chile, display immense distortion above inversion layers in the outskirts of the Atacama desert, Chile. The moon scene is filmed near Boston at the Atlantic Ocean shoreline. The mirage is an optical phenomenon in which light rays are refracted and bent in the atmosphere and produce distorted or multiple images of the object.

I'd guess that it would cause warping as the structure got bigger, they need the previous layers to cool rapidly to prevent deformation (although the previous layer needs to be hot enough to get a good water tight bond). Coming up with the right temp so that it forms a seamless flat surface would be difficult without causing running.

Not to be "that guy" (okay, what the hell, I love being "that guy") but aside from arty stuff, light shades, the aforementioned ashtrays and perhaps some really funky vases/glasses, this really seems to be limited by the method of extrusion and the refraction caused by having so many curved surfaces throughout the piece.

There are automatic refraction machines. Most optometrists have them these days and will use them before you go in for a manual refraction. They aren't as accurate as a manual refraction, and can't control for your preference, hence why manual is still done, but it quickly lets them know where to start.

Also, for people who have difficulties communicating, such as a baby, it can get you a pretty good result.

Well... there is a lot missing here. But for sure they are really getting the look of skin right. It is amazing how complex skin is to render, not because of texture but of light. We don't notice it at first but when you take away the ability of our skin to pass through and refract light, it immediately starts to look fake and inhuman.

When the arrow is moved to a particular distance behind the glass, it looks like it reversed itself. When light passes from one material to another, it can bend or refract. In the experiment that you just completed, light traveled from the air, through the glass, through the water, through the back of the glass, and then back through the air, before hitting the arrow. Anytime that light passes from one medium, or material, into another, it refracts.

Just because light bends when it travels through different materials, doesn't explain why the arrow reverses itself. To explain this, you must think about the glass of water as if it is a magnifying glass. When light goes through a magnifying glass the light bends toward the center. Where the light all comes together is called the focal point, but beyond the focal point the image appears to reverse because the light rays that were bent pass each other and the light that was on the right side is now on the left and the left on the right, which makes the arrow appear to be reversed.

I thought it was refraction from the heat ?

so a shockwave like how a lightning bolt makes thunder I would guess ?

Meh, everyone is either agnostic, lying or mad. As @newtboy said, gnosticism means "knowing". No-one knows for certain that there is or isn't a god. Therefore, everyone is agnostic.

Which makes it a fucking boring position to take.

Gnosticism at least has the virtue of being interesting. You know there's a god? ok, why? Ahh, you've heard voices.... right. Just slip on this comfy jacket... yeah, the arms are kinda long, but don't worry.

The question is almost never "do you know there is or isn't a god", it's "do you believe". And in that sense, almost everyone has an answer one way or the other. You may choose to believe in a god because you feel that things like compassion, rainbows and the majesty of the universe are evidence of his/her existence. Or you choose not to believe because you feel that these things are evidence of group altruism, refraction and some really amazingly weird ass physics.

Yeah, be humble and admit you could be wrong, but FFS, make a choice.

Oh and @Yogi, I wonder how kindly you'd feel toward religion if you had a well funded organisation who had dedicated themselves to discrediting your life's work (and with the most trivial nonsense as well).

And that is why we have "atheist evangelists". Because experience has shown that if you don't push back, certain theist elements will gradually start to encroach on things that are important.

Anhydrous aluminum sulfide refraction at sunsets' so breath(cough)taking...

>> ^Sniper007:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
The red ball is likely the heat glow of the object it hit, which doesn't mean an explosion, but incandescence. Lightning itself is glowing because of the incandescent effect of 30,000K temperatures on the gasses of the air + the refraction of air itself. Many of the objects in an around our houses are very rich in carbon, and carbon glows red, orange and yellow depending on the temperature. Add in the very white effect of lightning at close range and wallah, you got yourself a pretty red/white "explosion". That is my guess!

Isn't the "incandescent effect of a 30,000k temperaturre object" one portion of what comprises an "explosion"? Or to phrase it another way, if that wasn't an explosion, then what is? It seems like it was a rapid expansion of air which produced a burst of light and sound... AKA an explosion(?)


Absolutely correct, I used sloppy language, I meant it wasn't combustion (such is the meaning of explosion when we normally talk about it). Thunder is most surely the result of an explosion of air expanded by plasma. Good catch!

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

The red ball is likely the heat glow of the object it hit, which doesn't mean an explosion, but incandescence. Lightning itself is glowing because of the incandescent effect of 30,000K temperatures on the gasses of the air + the refraction of air itself. Many of the objects in an around our houses are very rich in carbon, and carbon glows red, orange and yellow depending on the temperature. Add in the very white effect of lightning at close range and wallah, you got yourself a pretty red/white "explosion". That is my guess!


Isn't the "incandescent effect of a 30,000k temperaturre object" one portion of what comprises an "explosion"? Or to phrase it another way, if that wasn't an explosion, then what is? It seems like it was a rapid expansion of air which produced a burst of light and sound... AKA an explosion(?)