Re: Sensory Infixes in rtemmu (was Mauve and a related conlang

wayne chevrier scripsit:

> I do know that liquid oxygen is blue, and I have never seen any colour in
> liquid nitrogen. But, IIRC, The colour of the sky, and hence the sea by
> reflection, is caused by the Rayleigh effect scattering the light(the colour
> dependant on the size of the scattering particles, in this case O2 and N2
> predominately).
I checked.  It's not Rayleigh scattering (which accounts for the whiteness
of clouds) but Tyndall scattering.  However, Rayleigh worked on Tyndall
scattering too, so it's loosely called Rayleigh scattering as well.
The cloud-is-white effect is also called Mie scattering.

It was Einstein who nailed down that N2 and O2 do the work, not dust and
particulates.

The blue of blue eyes and bluejays is also Tyndall scattering.

The sky is not violet because (1) much violet is absorbed in the upper
atmosphere and (2) our eyes are less sensitive to violet.

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_