How much physics can you spot in a single picture?
What I see here:
- Waves and their reflection on the sea wall (Do you see the two main fields? One coming in from the top right, and then the other one (technically the reflection of the first one) going out to the top left)
- Total reflection of light: Looking at the water surface at steep angles, we can look into the water and see the sandy sea floor and some stuff growing on it. At small angles, all we see is the reflection of the sky (and see how the angle we look at the water surface at depends not only on the direction we are looking, but also the local orientation of the water surface that is deformed by waves!)
- The way light is focussed on the sea floor by the incoming wave field, creating these bright lines parallel to the incoming wave crests, but nothing similar going on for the reflected wave field
- The Fata Morgana might be a little difficult to see, but if you click on the picture below, or even more clearly in the one at the bottom of this post, they will enlarge and you can see the light house (on the horizon, between the bird and the ColorLine) seemingly balancing on a rock with a very slim base, when in reality the base of the lighthouse only gets wider towards the ground…
And then there is of course lots more physics to see:
- A bird flying
- A ship swimming
- water vapour condensing into clouds and condensation trails
- a breeze changing the texture of the water surface
What else do you see?
