Visible Light Beams
From the side, a beam of light is only visible if part of the light is scattered by objects: tiny particles like dust, water droplets (mist, fog, rain), hail, snow, or smoke, or larger objects such as birds. If there are many objects in the light path, then it appears as a continuous beam, but if there are only a few objects, then the light is visible as a few individual bright points. In any case, this scattering of light from a beam, and the resultant visibility of a light beam from the side, is known as the Tyndall effect.
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Famous quotes containing the words visible, light and/or beams:
“We seem to be pariahs alike in the visible and the invisible world, with no foothold anywhere, though by every principle of government and religion we should have an equal place on this planet.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (18151902)
“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then its night once more.”
—Samuel Beckett (19061989)
“If we reason, we would be understood; if we imagine, we would that the airy children of our brain were born anew within anothers; if we feel, we would that anothers nerves should vibrate to our own, that the beams of their eyes should kindle at once and mix and melt into our own, that lips of motionless ice should not reply to lips quivering and burning with the hearts best blood. This is Love.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (17921822)