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Concentration of light, especially sunlight, can burn. The word caustic, in fact, comes from the Greek καυστός, burnt, via the Latin causticus, burning. A common situation where caustics are visible is when light shines on a drinking glass. The glass casts a shadow, but also produces a curved region of bright light.
In real life terms what this means is that light is reflected off non-shiny surfaces such as the ground, walls, or fabric, to reach areas not directly in view of a light source. If the diffuse surface is colored , the reflected light is also colored, resulting in similar coloration of surrounding objects.
Multiple-scattering effects of light scattering by particles are treated by radiative transfer techniques (see, e.g. atmospheric radiative transfer codes). The relative size of a scattering particle is defined by its size parameter x, which is the ratio of its characteristic dimension to its wavelength:
The light diffracted by a grating is found by summing the light diffracted from each of the elements, and is essentially a convolution of diffraction and interference patterns. The figure shows the light diffracted by 2-element and 5-element gratings where the grating spacings are the same; it can be seen that the maxima are in the same ...
Many different examples exist, and there are very large fields where forward scattering dominates, in particular for electron diffraction and electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and neutron diffraction. In these the relevant waves are transmitted through the samples.
In a statistical sense, elastic scattering of light by numerous particles much smaller than the wavelength of the light is a process known as Rayleigh scattering while the similar process for scattering by particles that are similar or larger in wavelength is known as Mie scattering with the Tyndall effect being a commonly observed result.
Reflection of light is either specular (mirror-like) or diffuse (retaining the energy, but losing the image) depending on the nature of the interface.In specular reflection the phase of the reflected waves depends on the choice of the origin of coordinates, but the relative phase between s and p (TE and TM) polarizations is fixed by the properties of the media and of the interface between them.
Diffraction, the apparent bending and spreading of light waves when they meet an obstruction; Dispersion; Double refraction or birefringence of calcite and other minerals; Double-slit experiment; Electroluminescence; Evanescent wave; Fluorescence, also called luminescence or photoluminescence; Mie scattering (Why clouds are white) Metamerism as ...