Re: How do photons travel in a straight line in air?
From: BW (bjorn_at_sparta.lu.se)
Date: 07/28/04
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Date: 28 Jul 2004 06:52:20 -0400
Franz Heymann wrote:
> > In glass, the atoms are regularly spaced
>
> No. Glass is not a crystal and neither is water
Right, so much I learned too when I actually looked up the structure
after writing that :)
The key properties that make glass transparent seemed to be that its
atoms are placed in a liquid (random) way as glass cools down to form a
solid, in combination with that the atoms are not very interested in
absorbing visible lights energies (turning them to heat) or having
free-floating electrons that can do the same (like in a metal). They
can absorb and retransmit though I think, otherwise the medium would
not have n <> 1. The interface to the surrounding medium (and
microscopic domains inside the material) need to not reflect too much
either of course.
Also, clarifying/correcting my last post with regards to the wave
interference effects inside the material - it seems that the
constructive interference in the forward direction does not really
depend on the arrangement of the atoms, but the destructive
interference that cancels scattering in the other directions does (and
increases by order). This much my old optics book implied at least :)
So transparency depends on a lot of factors. There *are* transparent
crystals, right ?
/Bjorn
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