FW: Re: [ATM] re: Large Telescope?

["mlbrown@everstrive.com" <mlbrown@everstrive.com>]

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Guy Brandenburg gfbrandenburg@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 16:31:15 -0800 (PST)
To: mackenzieconsulting@sympatico.ca, atm@atmlist.net
Subject: Re: [ATM] re: Large Telescope?

...
 It goes faster through the part that is
thinner, because there is less of an 'obstacle'
slowing it down. 

[MLB] To be clear, that should read "it takes less time to pass thru the
thinner part than the thicker part."  The speed is determined by the index
of refraction of the material it is passing thru.  The index of refraction
is defined as speed of light in a vacuum / speed in the material


If you assume that light tries to
take the 'quickest' path, you can show that with that
sort of a lens, if a bunch of parallel wave fronts hit
such a lens, the light from the outer edge will tend
to bend towards the middle of the lens. It reminds me
of calculus problems where you have a lifeguard 100
feet from shore who wants to save somebody drowning 30
feet out in the water; the lifeguard can run 10 m/sec
on land, but she can only swim 2 m/sec in the water.
Where should she run to on the shore to minimize the
time it will take to save the swimmer? This works out
to be equivalent to Snell's law.

If I remember correctly, that is.

[MLB] Yes, this is correct.  And infrared photons taste warm.




--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .


_______________________________________________
ATM mailing list http://www.atmlist.net/