John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 23hI spy a couple of udus on the studio floor! Exploit Helmholtz resonate, if I'm not mistaken. 000
Reposted by John NaylorRhett Allain @rhettallain.bsky.social · 06/10/2026If you look at astronomy textbooks, it's pretty much impossible to show the trajectory of the Earth and moon around the Sun. Does the moon orbit the Sun or Earth? #physics #astronomy rjallain.medium.com/why-do-textb...rjallain.medium.comWhy Do Textbooks Lie About the Moon’s Orbit Around the Earth?Everyone knows about the Sun, Earth and moon. As the Earth rotates on its axis, the Sun moves through the sky and this defines a day. The… 5142
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Geocentrism seems not to have yielded to heliocentrism to judge from most representations of the earth-moon system! 010
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 06/10/2026When the house next to us was refurbished, I complained to the foreman about the radio. He told me that his men could not work without it! I “retaliated” by complaining about every inconvenience, however slight, for the rest of the build. 110
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 04/10/2026A ruler with markings of 1/64th inch is a matter of triumph of hope over experience! 010
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 04/10/2026I failed to mention an interesting feature of Entwistle's superb rainbow image: the gap between the supernumerary arcs diminishes the closer they are to the ground, implying that drop size is increasing in that direction. Young included a coloured illustrated his 1845 account of these arcs. 030
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Thomas Young, who was the first person to explain & demonstrate the properties of light in terms of wave motion also was first to explain that supernumerary arcs are a consequence of waves interference. 2175
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Would those be the Liz Truss towers, by any chance? 110
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Having now read the article, this claim is a bit of a stretch, to say the least. Stick to directing sun glints on liquid bodies! 101
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Remarkable, indeed. Here in London, the are starved for rainbows given the lack of rain since earlier this year. 010
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/09/2026There is a widespread claim that there are far fewer words that describe sounds than those that describe sights. But the paucity of our acoustic vocabulary is apparent & more likely to be due to lack of use of what we have 000
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/09/2026You couldn’t get a finer view of the fabled ‘seven colours’ of a rainbow than this, always bearing in mind that it’s colours blend into one another, unlike those that can be produced with a prism or diffraction grating 260
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Thony, it was Huygens who calculated the speed of light sing Romer’s observations. Romer merely surmised that his observations implied that light travels very rapidly: 3000 leagues in less than a second 100
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Sound is a wave so diffracts wherever it encounters an object or an opening. With few exceptions, almost every sound we hear consist of a collection of wavelengths. Short wavelengths are diffracted much less than longer ones, so low frequency sounds remain audible when source is blocked. 121
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Effects of diffraction first noted by F.M.Grimaldi c.1665. Thoroughly investigated by Newton c 1675 with his usual phenomenal attention to detail and measurement. He accepted that water waves diffract but refused to accept that the phenomenon is due to wave nature of light. 041
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Lunar & solar coronas are not rare but they are seldom as complete and well defined as this one. Note to self : when out & about, look up at the sky not down at my shoes! 040
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Marin Mersenne, Minim friar, died 1 Sept 1648. He was the first person to discover experimentally how the frequency of a vibrating wire is related to its physical characteristics, to measure the speed of sound (by echoes & gunfire), and to determine the least pitch audible to humans is 16Hz. 030
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Hermann v Helmholtz, born 31 Aug, 1821, not only the foremost authority on the optics of the human eye during latter half of 19th C., he was also the leading authority on the perception of sound and its relationship to music. Author of “On The Sensations Of Tone” & “Treatise on physiological optics” 020
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 30/08/2026I have always found inverted images of reflection difficult to read without inverting them. It’s what makes them so puzzling. Evidence, perhaps, of how our visual system expects the world to look to us. 010
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 30/08/2026Potentially, yes, but not necessarily. Consider a situation in which, from the point of view of the observer, the illuminated rain shower occupies less than, say 10° and is confined to, say, 30° from anti solar point. In that situation the observer will see a short primary arc, no secondary. 000
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 29/08/2026Faraday was also one of the greatest theoreticians of the 19th C. Drawing on his research into electricity & magnetism, he the first scientist to suggest that light is an electromagnetic wave, an idea that was given mathematical form by James Clerk Maxwell. 010
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026No, Berkeley was arguing that the world existed only because it is observed. And if you consider sounds, colours, odors and this like (qualities that we assume are independent of us) he has a point. 000
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026I am skeptical. Could be due to the plane’s shadow obscuring the lower portion of the bright spot, hence resembling a crescent. 010
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026So, far from the reassuring biblical bow celebrated by Christians, for much of mankind, the rainbow is a terrifying bridge over which the souls of the dead ascend, hence a portent of death 110
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026When I first began to take an interest in rainbows I was often struck by how the arc appears to leap into the sky and bury itself into clouds, as it does in this splendid photo. This is the likely origin of the ancient, world-wide belief that a rainbow is a bridge to the next world 110
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026This is a very clear example of a rainbow feature often ignored by casual observers: the sky enclosed by the arc is filled by light reflected by rain drops. Very obvious here because the rain is illuminated by the rosy light of a setting sun, light that is deficient in blues & greens 040
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026The bluish fringe just beyond the reddish umbra may be due to sunlight that has passed though the earth’s ozone layer. Ozone strongly absorbs longer wavelength light, which gives the gas its characteristic bluish tinge. Often Noticeable at zenith during twilight. 020
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Interesting insight in heiligenschein optics bsky.app/profile/john... 020
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Surprising that there is a specific term for rare "wet" heligenschein but not for more common opposition effect. I've now added "dry heligenschien" to my atmos optics vocab! I once sprayed grass with a mist and could see a H., but photos did not show it. 110
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026A good example, although C’s halo is more likely to be due to the opposition effect rather than a heiligenschein. In my experience the latter is quite rare & the former quite common. 110
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026@fabriziobucella.bsky.social latest post was about trees and sound, which prompted my posts 100
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Do you mean whether or not "to be is to be perceived"? 310
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Agreed. The eye is the sine qua non of a rainbow 000
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Berkley maintained that “to be is to be perceived” and you might be tempted to think that the rainbow is proof of this. But while a rainbow is nothing if it is not seen, it is the conditions in which it is seen that are where we should focus the argument about whether it is all in the mind or not. 220
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026The short answer is an unequivocal no, though the explanation for this has nothing to do with philosophical doubts about whether the world exists independently of its perception, doubts expressed by George Berkely, the 18th C. Irish philosopher 110
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026As a variation on the hackneyed theme of the sound of falling trees in the absence of a listener, have you ever asked yourself the same question about rainbows? Can there be a rainbow if there is no one to see it? 110
John Naylor @johncnaylor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026La chute d'un arbre engendre des variations de pression dans l'air. Ces variations sont perçues comme un son par le système auditif. Le son est une sensation provoquée par l'action de ces variations de pression sur le tympan. Ainsi, en l'absence d'oreille, l'arbre est silencieux. 000