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Snell's window (also called Snell's circle [1] or optical man-hole [2]) is a phenomenon by which an underwater viewer sees everything above the surface through a cone of light of width of about 96 degrees. [3]
Snell's law (also known as the Snell–Descartes law, the ibn-Sahl law, [1] and the law of refraction) is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two different isotropic media, such as water, glass, or air.
English: Snell's window as seen through an underwater tunnel at the St. Louis Zoo. Caustics in the water are visible near the sun. The black line through the frame is a gasket between segments of the tunnel.
Light rays entering from water into the flat parallel window change their direction minimally within the window material itself. [2] But when these rays exit the window into the air space between the flat window and the eye, the refraction is quite noticeable. The view paths refract (bend) in a manner similar to viewing fish kept in an aquarium.
Through "Snell's window" (top), we see some of the scene above the water, including the handles of the ladder (right of center). The color-fringing of the light (top) and of the edge of Snell's window is due to variation of the refractive index, hence the critical angle, with wavelength. Reason I can't comment on its merits as a sports photo.
Fig. 1: Underwater plants in a fish tank, and their inverted images (top) formed by total internal reflection in the water–air surface. In physics, total internal reflection (TIR) is the phenomenon in which waves arriving at the interface (boundary) from one medium to another (e.g., from water to air) are not refracted into the second ("external") medium, but completely reflected back into ...
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