CTEBO
06-26-04, 09:11 PM
I have a very general question that I'd like to pose to you all as, more or less, a recreational brain teaser. I know little about optics but I think this might be an interesting way to explore the subject. Here's the situation...
- Imagine a huge glass sphere. Not so much huge like the Collosium...think Moon-sized. You are floating inside the sphere, located roughly halfway along the sphere's radius in any arbitrary direction. Around you is a random but even dispersement of equal-sized small chunks of rock, all pretty much at rest relative to each other and to you. Likewise, there is a random but even dispersement of equal-sized small chunks of rock floating outside the sphere. From your vantage point, you can see both sets of rock-chunks.
- There are two light sources. At the center of the sphere is one omni-directional red-light source. The other light source is you yourself. Your space suit or what have you omni-directionally shines a blue light with the same intensity as the red light located at the center of the sphere.
HERE IS THE CATCH: You are wearing an eyepatch that, as eye patches tend to do, robs you of your depth perception. You can still roughly gauge the distance of various rock-chunks by comparing their relative sizes (the farther the object, the smaller it appears). THE ACTUAL CATCH: The nature of the glass-out-of-which-the-sphere's-surface-is-made is such that it distorts the light coming back in from the outside in such a way that, with regard only to the rock-chunks outside the sphere itself, more distant rock-chunks actually look larger than closer ones. For all rock chunks outside the sphere, an increase in distance is indicated visually by a corresponding increase in relative size, AT THE SAME PROPORTIONALITY as an increase in distance is normally indicated visually by a decrease in relative size.
Long story short - inside the sphere distant objects look smaller (and blurrier) than closer objects, outside the sphere distant objects look larger (but still blurrier) than closer objects.
What are some logical consequences of this scenario?
- Imagine a huge glass sphere. Not so much huge like the Collosium...think Moon-sized. You are floating inside the sphere, located roughly halfway along the sphere's radius in any arbitrary direction. Around you is a random but even dispersement of equal-sized small chunks of rock, all pretty much at rest relative to each other and to you. Likewise, there is a random but even dispersement of equal-sized small chunks of rock floating outside the sphere. From your vantage point, you can see both sets of rock-chunks.
- There are two light sources. At the center of the sphere is one omni-directional red-light source. The other light source is you yourself. Your space suit or what have you omni-directionally shines a blue light with the same intensity as the red light located at the center of the sphere.
HERE IS THE CATCH: You are wearing an eyepatch that, as eye patches tend to do, robs you of your depth perception. You can still roughly gauge the distance of various rock-chunks by comparing their relative sizes (the farther the object, the smaller it appears). THE ACTUAL CATCH: The nature of the glass-out-of-which-the-sphere's-surface-is-made is such that it distorts the light coming back in from the outside in such a way that, with regard only to the rock-chunks outside the sphere itself, more distant rock-chunks actually look larger than closer ones. For all rock chunks outside the sphere, an increase in distance is indicated visually by a corresponding increase in relative size, AT THE SAME PROPORTIONALITY as an increase in distance is normally indicated visually by a decrease in relative size.
Long story short - inside the sphere distant objects look smaller (and blurrier) than closer objects, outside the sphere distant objects look larger (but still blurrier) than closer objects.
What are some logical consequences of this scenario?