Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also the blood veins that you see as bluish through the skin are blue for the same reason, due to light scattered in their walls.
I thought they are green.
Definitely more blue/purple.
Why is the sky blue?
81–90 of 279 posts
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#82Okay, why does visible light have that range of frequencies?
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#83Back in my youth, after the Internet became common but before Wikipedia, I tried to discover the answer to this and came away disappointed again and again. Every article I could find simply stated "because light scattering", and barely much more. How does scattering work? Why does light scatter? _What does scattering even mean in the context of light?_
Yes! This is exactly why I wrote this article :) Any other questions give you the same disappointment?
How can light "bounce off" something if it doesn't have mass?
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#84Really cool article! Tangential: > “Scattering” is the scientific term of art for molecules deflecting photons. Linguistically, it’s used somewhat inconsistently. You’ll hear both “blue light scatters more” (the subject is the light) and “atmospheric molecules scatter blue light more” (the subject is the molecule). In any case, they means the same thing There's nothing ambiguous or inconsistent about this. In English…
Labile verbs is a source of ambiguity of natural languages (only western ones?) that we are all accustomed to.
The bell rang should become The bell was rung, either way it means The bell rang another bell.
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#85Okay, why does visible light have that range of frequencies?
because they are the frequencies that pass though water most readily, and we are made of mostly water
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#86This level if geekiness is amazing. I hope more, a lot more, Americans can get into STEMS with this level of passion. It's sad that in the past few decades more and more people seemed to forget that STEM is a pillar of the modern civilization that we enjoy.
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#87In The Cuckoo's Egg Cliff Stoll recounts an episode from the oral defense of his astrophysics PhD thesis. A bunch of people ask questions but one prof holds back until... """ “I’ve got just one question, Cliff,” he says, carving his way through the Eberhard-Faber. “Why is the sky blue?” My mind is absolutely, profoundly blank. I have no idea. I look out the window at the sky with the primitive, uncomprehending wonder…
I am positively excited about the upcoming first generation of humans who will have all their questions answered, correctly and in the way they can best understand, and as often and many of them as they want – and what that is going to enable.
Me too but I don't think these sorts of Solved Society endgames are likely to show up. Basically presents the same issue with a utopia.
Progression and regression are always going to be at war with each other. There will always be humans that want to hurt instead of help, there will always be humans who TRY to help but ultimately hurt. There will always be misinformation, there will always be lies, and there will always be liars.
The good news is there will also always be people trying to pull humanity forwards, to help other people, to save lives, to eradicate disease, educate, and expose the truth.
I don't think society will ever be solved in the way you're saying because there will always be hurtful people, but there will also always be good people to keep up the fight.
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#88If you think about it "because air is blue when you look at it from the side" is about all the explanation we'd require if the sky was some normal object like an apple. Nobody asks "why is wood brown?" as if it's some deep question, but "why is the sky blue?" is somehow given greater gravitas, as if the reason is more mystical. I guess because the sky is so big and uniform?
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
i used something like this in unstructured technical interviews all the time. "you type a phrase into google search, you press enter, get some results. tell me, in technical detail, what happened in that chain of actions" the diversity of replies is fascinating, you learn a lot about a "full stack" candidate this way. Feynman's classic "Why?" chain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA
I'd probably spend at least 20 minutes just to get through how the keyboard works, much more if it's a USB-HID device.
Hah - that is exactly what I did. Someone asked me this question and after 5 minutes in the weeds of the debounce on the mouse click they said "look all we wanted was to find out if you'd ever heard of DNS, let's move on, that was great".
Re: Why is the sky blue?
#90Interesting here is: Actually, for most blue butterflies, it’s not even a pigment-it’s just a trick of the light. Since blue is so rare in the biological world (hardly any plants or animals can produce real blue chemicals), they evolved structural colors. Their wings have these microscopic ridges that reflect blue light while canceling out other colors. It’s basically the same reason the sky looks blue, just built in…
It's also the trick employed by Iridigm, which Qualcomm acquired in late 2004 (i was there then). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_modulator_disp...
I'm curious how they were able to patent a technique invented by nature millions of years ago.