#polarized light

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Woitschikowski works only when he’s relaxed. “When you’re stressed,” he says, “you cannot see pictures,” such as this one of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C.

Crystalizing common chemicals

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER WOITSCHIKOWSKI

Polarized light gives microcrystals of liquid acetaminophen a three-dimensional effect.

[biology-geology-beaches-india]

Beach birds winging their way over the lustrous liquid silver of the Gosthani River.

The glare here is so intense and must be borne by these birds for such sustained stretches, essentially the entire day, that one marvels these birds do not develop an avian version of snow blindness!!.

We need sunlight to see but sunlight is also detrimental to sight!!!. The ultraviolet rays present in it can cause an opacity of the eye lens - cataract - a serious matter considering that this causes blindness in about 25 million people worldwide. And if there is one species that truly needs ultra-sharp vision for its livelihood it is the high-flying bird!!! Birds don’t peer!!!.

The UV glare from the mobile mirror-like surface of these water apparently cause photo-oxidation of the crystalline proteins in the eye lens, not to mention the generation of superoxide and other reactive oxygen species that do further damage.That the eye lens contains one of the highest concentrations of the antioxidant Ascorbic Acid does not now surprise us!!!

The eye lens is especially vulnerable not only because its proteins are held at super-saturation, making them very vulnerable to precipitation by any chemical or mechanical injury, but in addition do not undergo any molecular or cellular turnover. The lens proteins you are born with are all that you will have for life, and upon reflection it is little short of a molecular miracle that they stay clear and crystalline as long as they do - seven decades.

Cataracts due to relentless sun exposure and glare while out at sea in low-lying boats  - that shortens the distance between the shiny surface and the eye - beset the 50,000 fisherman of Srikakulam district  - about 130 kilometers from here - many of whom develop lens opacities in their forties precluding many of them then from making a living, a serious matter in a people who essentially live from hand-to-mouth..

How these birds - doubtless long-lived, and fishermen in their own right!! - manage to keep their eyes and vision intact over a lifetime - assuming they do, they well might not - is a puzzle that needs explication.

The puzzle is further accentuated by the fact that reflected light is mostly polarized light, and as the pharmaceutical industry has known for a long time, polarized light is far more potent in producing molecular damage than un-polarized light.

May 10, 2010, Gosthani River confluence, Bheemili, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

[ahb-writes]

Polarized Vision || Unconventional Senses and Sensory Attributes

❯ ❯ Polarized Vision

Interestingly, animals with polarized vision can control the amount of light entering their eyes (or, attenuate the orientation at which light waves oscillate). Many animal species have developed superior navigational skills by basing their efforts on the sun's various positions. In other words, navigating the sky using time-dependent light patterns. Some animals use polarized vision (or polarized-light sensitivity) for "contrast enhancement, camouflage breaking, object recognition, and signal detection and discrimination," according to a research article published in Integrative and Comparative Biology.

When perceiving scattered or refracted light, environmental factors, atmospheric factors, perturbations in the medium (e.g., waves in water), medium quality, and pollution all affect an already highly sensitive manner of pattern discernment.

Human-world applications abound, from fancy sunglasses that enable one to increase visual clarity in high-glare environments to increasing the precision of advanced military technology. In one fantastic example, engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studied the mantis shrimp in extraordinary detail and developed a camera (i.e., a one-inch cube) that mimics the shrimp's use of polarized light as well as the shrimp's capacity to manipulate its detection of light intensity. According to Scientific American, the camera's dynamic emulation of these natural abilities could help cars detect hazards in ambiguous conditions, enable military drones to identify camouflaged or shadowed targets, and help surgeons perform more accurately. It's difficult to state how powerful this new technology is: The engineers' cube camera's light-detection ability was 10,000-times higher than today's commercial cameras (and yes, the tech is already available for cheap, mass production...).

❯ ❯ Adapted from a senses-writing masterpost: 15 Unconventional Senses and Sensory Attributes

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The ability of molecules to rotate a plane of polarised light can be observed with the use of a polarimeter in the following way (see figure 17.25).

"Chemistry" 2e - Blackman, A., Bottle, S., Schmid, S., Mocerino, M., Wille, U.

[highlyentropicmind]

Summoning the nerd council:

My fellow nerds, I seek your advice. In the next episode I talk about the math of spin, and I'm struggling with explanations and metaphors and making animations… But then I remembered that light polarizers exist. I would use some polarizers to make a demonstration of successive Stern-Gerlach experiments and superpositions… But I worry that it will be confusing, after all, we are talking about electrons, not light. I could explain that light also has spin follows the same math, but I haven't given the audience the experimental evidence to believe that, and doing that would take the video in a different direction…. Aaaaargh!

What do you think nerd council? Would the demonstrations with polarized light do more harm than good?

[greenwhitegold]

Kuran'da geçen, Peygamberimizin çok güzel bir duası: "Rabbim, ilmimi arttır." Tâ-Hâ Suresi 114 Bilgi sahibi olmak, ilimde, bilgide derinleşmek imanı müthiş güçlendiren, Allah'a ve yarattıklarına sevgiyi arttıran mükemmel bir araç.

[ministarfruit]

day 9: in the shadows ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

[illustratus]

The Harsprånget Waterfall on the Lule River

by Carl Svante Hallbeck

[zhoras-bitch]

So in chapter 8, when MC has their flashback of being held in Valax's dungeon, it's your LI who helps them come back to their senses. And if it's one of the main four, they all say something sweet along the lines of, 'It's alright, I'm here for you.' But if it's Aerin, he says, 'I know what you're feeling.' And I mean, obviously, who else can relate to MC's experience more than the man who spent the year locked up in a dungeon himself, but omg. The writers are so real for adding this detail.

Screenshots from Abhiro on Yt @masked-alien-lesbian @ganakoo @lantsov-vanserra (and me lol).

[biology-geology-beaches-india]

Such is the astonishing reflectivity of water, a parameter that increases exponentially once the angle of incidence of light exceeds the Brewster’s Angle of 53 degrees, that it has no trouble literally converting itself into a silver mirror that provides now such a bright, brilliant and burnished background as to guarantee the supernal, superlative silhouette, as witness these beautifully silhouetted beach birds standing stock-still on the riverbank of the Gosthani. The effect is enhanced by the fact that the electric vector of any electromagnetic wave - light being one - can be resolved into both a horizontal component and a vertical component, and that for substantial stretches of degrees both above and below the Brewster’s Angle the horizontal component is fully absorbed by the water; which means that predominantly pure polarized light, now exclusively polarized in the vertical direction, enters the camera. As any professional photographer knows the astonishing glare and catoptric reflectivity of polarized light can vastly increase the sharpness and darkness of a silhouette, water itself performing the function of a polarizer here. We find that the lustrous, light-lit littoral is a magisterial metaphysical mirror that outlines both forms and philosophies.  

May 10, 2010, Gosthani River confluence, Bheemili, Andhra Pradesh.

[ecoharbor]

📍Polar Express, Zermatt, Switzerland 🇨🇭

[jamanimations]

My first official digital artwork

[canisalbus]

IDK if I'm phrasing this correctly, but in my brain, Vasco is, like, the personification (caninification?) of an afternoon chilling on a back porch swing.

.

[polarlightszine]

❄️ POLAR LIGHTS 2 Now Live!

Polar Lights 2: Dawn is a digital charity anthology featuring original art and writing from 36 creators in a collection of 32 illustrations, 6 pieces of writing, and more.

All proceeds will benefit the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, a global coalition of environmental NGOs working for the protection of species and marine ecosystems in Antarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean.

Grab a digital copy of zine for as little as $2! 🩵

Shares greatly appreciated.

[magicharp]

cerise and daring but its East of the Sun and West of the Moon