Refraction of light in water – sticks and lenses.

Deformation in the water surface focussing light.

Talking about how a deformation in the surface leads to light being focussed in different ways here and here, another example came to my mind. Remember how my mom and I were watching the standing waves at the Pinnau a while back? That was the same place where we also observed the “shadows” of the eddies, so as we were playing with water and light anyway, this happened:

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A stick poking through the water surface. See the deformation of the surface and the effect that has on focussing the light at the ground (when you follow the stick down to the ground and then follow its shadow)?

See how the stick is deforming the water surface? This again leads to a focussing of light at the ground which you can observe if you follow the stick until you reach the ground and then follow its shadow.

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