Visible Light Beams
From the side, a beam of light is only visible if part of the light is scattered by objects: tiny particles like dust, water droplets (mist, fog, rain), hail, snow, or smoke, or larger objects such as birds. If there are many objects in the light path, then it appears as a continuous beam, but if there are only a few objects, then the light is visible as a few individual bright points. In any case, this scattering of light from a beam, and the resultant visibility of a light beam from the side, is known as the Tyndall effect.
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Famous quotes containing the words visible, light and/or beams:
“Men of extraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, “Not unto us, not unto us.” According to the faith of their times, they have built altars to Fortune, or to Destiny, or to St. Julian. Their success lay in their parallelism to the course of thought, which found in them an unobstructed channel; and the wonders of which they were the visible conductors seemed to their eye their deed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower—”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Give me the splendid silent sun
with all his beams full-dazzling,
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,
Give me a field where the unmow’d grass grows,
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d grape,
Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching content,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)