Glories in Culture
C. T. R. Wilson saw a glory while working as a temporary observer at the Ben Nevis weather station. Inspired by the impressive sight, he decided to build a device for creating clouds in the laboratory, so that he could make a synthetic, small-scale glory. His work led directly to the cloud chamber, a device for detecting ionizing radiation for which he and Arthur Compton received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1927.
In China, this phenomenon is called Buddha's light. It was often observed on cloud-shrouded high mountains, such as Huangshan Mountains and Mount Emei. Records of the phenomenon at Mount Emei date back to A.D. 63. The colorful halo always surrounds the observer's own shadow, and thus was often taken to show the observer's personal enlightenment (associated with Buddha or divinity).
Read more about this topic: Glory (optical Phenomenon)
Famous quotes containing the words glories and/or culture:
“To assault the total culture totally is to be free to use all the fruits of mankind’s wisdom and experience without the rotten structure in which these glories are encased and encrusted.”
—Judith Malina (b. 1926)
“Whatever offices of life are performed by women of culture and refinement are thenceforth elevated; they cease to be mere servile toils, and become expressions of the ideas of superior beings.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)