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Loading... The Nature of Light and Colour in the Open Airby M. Minnaert
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Unparalleled as an accessible, accurate and practical source to discovering the many common and rare optical phenomena visible in the sky. Would-be ufologists and conspiracy theorists would be well advised to start here. ( ) A bit technical, so this isn't for children, but a really interesting look at various phenomena of light and colour. The author looks at not just shadows, rainbows, and mirages, but delves into the whys and wherefores of things like interference colours in ferruginous water, how colours are affected by humidity, etc. This is a super interesting book. There was simultaneously too much math for me (I'm a math lightweight), and also parts of it felt too speculative. I wonder if that's just a factor of when it was (originally) written. Still, what I read of it was broken up into quite short digestible chunks, and there were some really interesting insights even in just the first few chapters. A wonderful, wonderful book: the type of popular science book we see far to rarely today, written for the interested amateur but assuming the interested amateur is quite willing to to a little work (and a little trigonometry) to learn. This book asks questions about why we see what we see when we look at a river, or a field of grass, or a cloud, or out the window of a train; and then it does its best to answer them, and its best is very good. I only wish I had found this book earlier in my life; it teaches you to look around you and wonder about what you see. no reviews | add a review
All of science springs from the observation of nature. In this classic book, the late Marcel Minnaert accompanies the reader on a tour of nature's light and color and reveals the myriad phenomena that may be observed outdoors with no more than a pair of sharp eyes and an enquiring mind. From the intriguing shape of the dapples beneath a tree on a sunny day, to rainbows, mirages, and haloes, to the colors of liquid, ice, and the sky, to the appearance of the sun, moon, planets, and stars - Minnaert describes and explains them all in clear language accessible to the layman. This volume includes 80 new photographs, over half in color, illustrating many of the phenomena - ordinary and exotic - discussed in the book. Most of the new photos are by Pekka Parviainen, the renowned Finnish nature photographer. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)535Natural sciences and mathematics Physics OpticsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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