Put a pencil straight down into a glass of water. Notice whether the pencil looks bent. Now tilt the pencil and note how its apparent bending changes. How does this illustrate why light from objects near the horizon is refracted more strongly?
Quit posting under different names. As far as I am concerned, it is akin to deception. If there is something you don't understand about a previous response, all you have to do is ask. In the previous response to this, I asked a question: does that question give you the answer?
gygh
Apologies for any confusion caused by posting under different names. I appreciate your feedback and will ensure consistency in the future. To clarify your question, when you asked about the previous response providing the answer, it seems like you were referring to the concept of refraction. While the question itself did not explicitly contain the answer, it did provide a helpful analogy that demonstrated the principle of refraction using a pencil in water.
Now, coming back to your question about how this activity with a pencil in water helps illustrate why light from objects near the horizon is refracted more strongly – let's dive into the explanation.
When you insert a pencil straight down into a glass of water, you may notice that the portion of the pencil submerged in water appears bent at the water's surface. This phenomenon occurs due to the bending of light as it passes from one medium (air) into another (water) with a different refractive index. The change in speed of light when it crosses the boundary between these two mediums causes the light rays to change direction or bend, resulting in the apparent bending of the pencil.
Now, if you tilt the pencil in the water, the apparent bending becomes more pronounced. This happens because the angle at which the light enters the water changes, leading to a greater change in direction and further apparent bending.
You can apply this principle to understand why light from objects near the horizon is refracted more strongly. When the sun or other objects are closer to the horizon, their light must travel through a larger portion of the Earth's atmosphere to reach us. The Earth's atmosphere is not uniform and is composed of layers with different air densities due to varying temperature, humidity, and other factors. These varying densities cause the speed of light to change as it moves through these layers.
As the light from the sun or objects near the horizon passes through the atmosphere, it encounters different layers with varying refractive indices. This refraction causes the light to change direction and bend, similar to how the pencil appeared bent in water. The greater the distance the light travels through the atmosphere (i.e., closer to the horizon), the more pronounced the bending or refraction becomes.
Therefore, the apparent bending of the pencil in water when tilted can help us understand why light from objects near the horizon is refracted more strongly as it passes through Earth's atmosphere, leading to various optical phenomena such as sunsets, sunrises, and the elongation of the solar disk when observed near the horizon.