magnifying towel

[SubJunk]

I was just outside lying in the sun with a towel over my face, and sunlight got through tiny holes in the towel, it wasn't a very thick towel. It made pretty little circles in front of my eyes. I started playing with them (for want of a better word) and they got bigger and smaller depending on how i focused my eyes, as one would expect. After tinkering with my eyes a bit, I was able to 'zoom in' to these circles while still focusing on them, and saw that I could see the surface of my eyes in them. little bugs floating around in the liquid etc. I'm interested to know how a towel could act like a lens like that... It was very cool, I recommend you all try it.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Those "little bugs" are actually proteins floating around in there. That normally doesn't happen, so it was probably all of the focusing and stuff doing that.

[SubJunk]

thanks for replying. i know what the bugs are, i was more meaning to ask what causes the magnification through the towel. possibly the light coming through the towel isn't doing anything but allowing a singular point to focus on rather than it all being light.

[Sayonara]

You have eye monsters. Go see the nurse before they spread to others.

[jsatan]

I dnt think it mag its just makes it easy for your eye to focus on, its just like the pin hole through card and even if u wear glasses you can see clearly through the hole, and as you had the towel so close to you eye it wasnt mag the bugs.

 

i dunno.

[SubJunk]

Eye monsters? Really? Are they eating my eyes?

arrrrggggggg! :-D

[5614]

i know that people say that generally light does not diffract due to its tiny wavelength. however, this is not theoretically true. Everything diffracts if it is shone through a small enough hole.

 

therefore i think that this is an example of light diffracting through the tiny holes of the towel.

[jsatan]

incorrect, its just narrows the light span that hits the back of the eye, which is doing what a lens would do.

[5614]

actually diffraction will expand the wave!

 

proof:

taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_tank (diffraction section (3/4 of the way down that page))

 

as you can see in this picture you have the whole (hole in towel) which is surrounded by something solid (towel). you wave (light) goes through the whole.

the wave then expands bigger than the hole.. thus we see the wave expanding larger than the whole it came through... the wave in this case it the wave of photons which is light.... if the wave of photons aka wave of light expands then it become bigger which makes it look bigger which makes it seem like is being magnified which makes you wrong and me right!!!

 

^HA

 

^sorry about that... im in one of those moods (just ignore me... or the last bit anyway!)

 

incorrect, its just narrows the light span that hits the back of the eye, which is doing what a lens would do.

what you are thinking of it the world without diffraction... but as on this world the laws of physics applies diffraction does happen and even though light has a very small wavelength, the wholes in the towel are also very small so diffraction would happen. (in which case see above!)

[jsatan]

Yeah I did all that stuff in my A-levels.

 

The wave length of light that we can see is between 700nm - 400nm.

There is no way that a hole small enought for this to happen would even be visable to you eye.

 

go read this http://www.netasia.net/users/truehealth/Pinhole%20glasses.htm

this will explain what I've been trying to say.

you idea is fine, but not what is happening,

 

And this, http://www.exo.net/~pauld/summer_institute/summer_day3eye_and_brain/pin_and__hole.html

 

Pin hole glasses.

[5614]

note bold parts

bigger and smaller depending on how i focused my eyes, as one would expect. After tinkering with my eyes a bit, I was able to 'zoom in' to these circles while still focusing on them,

so whilst what i say can happen and what you say can happen the thingy which subjunk was talking about sounds more like what i said.

 

so nice links; what you are talking about obviously can happen but at the same time that does not give a valid answer to the original post, whereas my answer would.

 

"The wave length of light that we can see is between 700nm - 400nm.

There is no way that a hole small enought for this to happen would even be visable to you eye."

indeed that is what i thought at first, but then considering, blackness around you (cuased by towel) even if a tiny tiny (remember this is white light) so 400nm and 700nm light would come through the holes, this would be see-able against the totally black background.

due to what he describes in the original post i could only think of diffraction. whilst i accept what you say.. can you think of any other reasoning for what he says????

[Gilded]

Ahh they are proteins! I've been wondering what on earth they are. I see them quite often. Though due to certain mushrooms, I see quite odd things all the time.

 

"You have eye monsters. Go see the nurse before they spread to others."

 

If one would actually have "eye monsters" I wonder how they would spread... Jump from an eye to eye when in close range? Funny mental image, nevertheless.