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Posted
Fact #37: When travelling through sodium at -270 degrees, light slows to 38 miles per hour.

 

Light passing through sodium? Have you ever seen sodium? It's a metal. Dunno where you live but on my world light doesn't pass through metals. It tends to stop and bounce off.

Posted
and i take it when you say "UK" you mean england.. as the licensing laws in scotland are different...

 

They're not hugely different any more, as the new licensing laws brought in mimic the UK ones in most ways.

Posted
Light passing through sodium? Have you ever seen sodium? It's a metal. Dunno where you live but on my world light doesn't pass through metals. It tends to stop and bounce off.

 

It is possible to heat metals until they form gasses. Just look at mercury - it evaporates in normal temperature air.

Posted
Light passing through sodium? Have you ever seen sodium? It's a metal. Dunno where you live but on my world light doesn't pass through metals. It tends to stop and bounce off.

 

It was actually through sodium atoms - a laser bathed sodium vapour was used in the experiment Slow Light

Posted
Ah, the Bose-Einstein condensate...silly me...:boom:

 

can't believe you forgot about the bose-einstein condensate. how stupid must you feel right now.......

:whistle:

Posted (edited)

Seeing as fact#39 has been dismissed as not true...

 

Fact #39: Cracking knuckles does not cause arthritis. A science experiment was performed on 100 people over 60 years where one hand had cracked knuckles, the other didn't. Both hands were examined and seemed equal for the potential for arthritis; cracking caused no noticeable damage.

Edited by featured_spectre
re-edited the fact number
Posted
Seeing as fact#39 has been dismissed as not true...

 

Fact #40: Cracking knuckles does not cause arthritis. A science experiment was performed over 60 years where one hand had cracked knuckles, the other didn't. Both hands were examined and seemed equal for the potential for arthritis; cracking caused no noticeable damage.

 

A single study with a single pair of hands does not mean a useful conclusion to me... If they'd done it with 1000 pairs of hands over those years, then that would be statistically significant. :p

Posted
Light passing through sodium? Have you ever seen sodium? It's a metal. Dunno where you live but on my world light doesn't pass through metals. It tends to stop and bounce off.

It was actually through sodium atoms - a laser bathed sodium vapour was used in the experiment Slow Light

Ah, the Bose-Einstein condensate...silly me...:boom:

Well, there is the possibility of quantum mechanical tunnelling, which would allow, under certain circumstances, light to pass through a solid. And you don't need to bother with super-cooling.

 

A fun experiment to try at home is just to shine an led torch under your thumb, and see your nail light up red. Not quite the same thing, and it defo wont be much slower, but clever all the same.

 

how can something that is a myth be a fact? :p

Second that notion.

 

Seeing as fact#39 has been dismissed as not true...

 

Fact #40: Cracking knuckles does not cause arthritis. A science experiment was performed on 100 people over 60 years where one hand had cracked knuckles, the other didn't. Both hands were examined and seemed equal for the potential for arthritis; cracking caused no noticeable damage.

 

I miswrote that...i'll edit the post

 

Fact #40, should be renumbered #39 else we'll be short a fact ;)

 

I get the feeling this thread reads much like the legal department's inbox at Mythbusters, anyone else..?

Posted

I can't say i've gone to any great lengths to investigate it, but I believe the reason that when you shine a torch through your thumb/fingers and you can 'see though' them, is due to light reflection and density of materials.

 

From what I remember/understand, it works in a similar principle to Optical Fibre, and the red comes from your skin acting as a light filter. Light is bounced off the bones of your finger, and reflected within the layer of skin. Your nail is is a change in density, altering the light reflection patterns and so light escapes in a different amount and pattern.

Posted (edited)
I can't say i've gone to any great lengths to investigate it, but I believe the reason that when you shine a torch through your thumb/fingers and you can 'see though' them, is due to light reflection and density of materials.

 

From what I remember/understand, it works in a similar principle to Optical Fibre, and the red comes from your skin acting as a light filter. Light is bounced off the bones of your finger, and reflected within the layer of skin. Your nail is is a change in density, altering the light reflection patterns and so light escapes in a different amount and pattern.

 

The point was just that the light can 'pass' through what is otherwise considered an impermeable solid.

Edited by vikpaw
Posted
The point was just that the light can 'pass' through what is otherwise considered an impermeable solid.

 

No disrespect but that's a rubbish analogy to light passing through sodium metal. The light passes through your thumb because your thumb is made of material which is not entirely opaque - it has nothing to do with it being a solid (diamond is also a solid but is not impermeable to light). If you had a thumb made of sodum metal (God forbid!) I doubt you'd see any light passing through it. It would also be very interesting when you came to wash your hands...

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