According to the conventional understanding there are two kinds of prismatic experiments: subjective and objective. The subjective experiments are basically understood to be those in which the observer is thought to be interfering with the experiment. The objective prismatic experiments are understood to be those in which the observer is thought not to be interfering with the experiment. Thus, if the experimenter is looking through a prism at a source of light, what he sees is deemed to be a subjective observation. Conversely, if the experimenter is looking at some screen upon which a prismatic image has been intercepted, his observation is deemed to be objective. Furthermore, if the experimenter substitutes his eye with the eye of some recording device, like a camera, the observation thus acquired is still considered to be subjective. If, on the other hand, the experimenter uses a camera to record a prismatic image captured on a screen, the observation acquired is considered to be objective.
Now, with all these things being said, I want to ask the conventional physicist what kind of observation is the one captured in the image below.
Think carefully before trying to sell me a hybrid story (half subjective, half objective, blah, blah) for there is a prismatic image intercepted by the same screen upon which your so-called objective image is recorded. And if you're still defiant and start concocting other stories to try to justify your position, I will show you even more confronting images that will make your skin crawl with the fear of your time coming to an inevitable end. Images like this
and this
and this
Needless to say, the conventional physicist has treated the so-called subjective experiments much differently than those so-called objective ones. This is of course another Newtonian legacy, and it is a most unfortunate one. Somewhat ironically though Newton believed that the same rules governed and applied to both. In spite of that, however, the reality is that he took little time to examine the subjective observations with the same care as he did with the objective ones. One significant example of this fact is the manner in which he treated the observation that in subjective experiments the spectrum is inversely displayed--VBGYOR, instead of ROYGBV (from the apex of the prism to the base). Apart from mentioning that fact, in passing, he did nothing at all about it. And that failure, again, has reverberated to the present day. To such an extent that today's conventional physicist's 'explanation' for that observation is such a cacophonous verbiage of nonsense that it makes me want to howl to the moon every time I hear it. And believe me, I have heard it so many times over the years...
Newton's failure to treat the so-called subjective experiments with the same degree of care as he treated the objective ones is by and large the main cause for the staggering level of prismatic ignorance that is prevalent today. From the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of examples that I could give you about that fact, in the end I have chosen only one. It is a personal example and it happened a few months back at the Physics StackExchange forum. It began when I posted the question below.
My question attracted two answers.
I don't want to spend any time at all discussing the 'answers' given. That wasn't my intention in the first place for showing you this particular example. The main reason for that decision was to highlight what should be the most valuable insight one should extract from this little piece of factual reality. The overarching lesson of this story is to see that the vast majority of us invariably fail to see that the simplest truths are the hardest to discover. The question I had posted to that forum should have been comprehensively answered in less than 100 words by pretty much anyone who had even a superficial knowledge of Goethe's and Newton's work. So much so, I say, that any ordinary thinker (with even a superficial knowledge of the works I mentioned) should have instantly realised that when it comes to providing a consistent explanation for the observation in question Goethe's wins hands down, beyond the shadow of a doubt. For those unable to see the truth of this matter even now the only thing I have to say is this: I'm sorry that it is I who had to inform you that you're definitely not a thinker. That doesn't mean that you couldn't be a physicist. Quite the contrary, in fact, for to the best of everybody's knowledge, there hasn't been thus far even a single physicist--of the conventional kind, let us specify--who's managed to see that small piece of the bloody truth in the last 350 years. So, I have said, once and for all, but if there's anyone who thinks that he knows better don't cower in the safety of shadows. Come forward, out here, in the open, under the lights and scrutiny of all--or otherwise keep your mouth firmly shut. Forever.
There is one particularly interesting little story that occurred in my former correspondence with Dr. Markus Selmke I don't think I ever mentioned on these pages before, so I'll do it today because it's certainly worth knowing (by the discerning mind).
After a few intense weeks of being involved in a torrid exchange of emails with Dr. Selmke I was beginning to get a pretty confident picture of what the man in question might be really like and about, so one day I decided to put it to a certain test, for good measure. Specifically, in a short and seemingly unrelated email to any other since then I asked the good Dr. to put a percentage number on how confident he truly was that the conventional understanding of rainbows was correct. A short time later his answer was crying out from my inbox and under the cheeky gaze of my Greek I opened the email and wryly grinned aloud the (rather sadly, and quite disappointingly) unsurprising figure. The test was over and in an instant I was completely freed of any lurking sense of either guilt, regret, remorse or wonder.
I have been taking my time with this post. There's no need to hurry. I remember reading somewhere, a long time ago now, someone's answer to a question whether one who might harbour a belief in possessing some great scientific insight should be wary about how to expose it to the world at large, in order to prevent/avoid/insure that it won't be stolen or claimed by some one else, later. One, the answer went, should not worry at all about that, for if one's unspecified scientific insight should happen to really be "great" then one shall find that no one will even think about doing anything of the kind.
Clever. More importantly, though, true 😎!😂
Almost a year ago to the day I received the email below from Markus Selmke. Today I decided to answer it.
Dear Remus,
Your answer does not address the points I have raised. I take it that you have no meaningful response to offer.
Why don't you do all those things yourself
I did indeed, indirectly many times. The direct measurement is too simple to warrant a dedicated section in a lab course, but you will find it in the curricula of many schools with dedicated experimental setups. In my physics training I have for instance done many of the following experiments myself:
http://home.uni-leipzig.de/physfp/fprakt.html
You will find spectroscopy among them, which for dispersive spectrometers is based precisely on snells law of refraction and dispersion.
You may also remember that I have published research. I have used Snells law in combination with dispersion many times and found good agreement with experiments I have done myself. My latest contribution in this direction being the fairly simple deomstration experiment and its quantification here: https://128.84.21.199/abs/1608.08664 (to appear in the next issue of Am. J. Phys., after a vetting and partial rewriting within the due course of a proper and lengthy critical review process; in fact you will be able to notice the difference between the final version and the submitted manuscript according to the ArXiv version). I found the agreement with experiments only WITH the inclusion of dispersion, and inferior results without. Unsurprisingly, I should say, because dispersion is, contrary to your baseless and evidently uninformed claim, a century-old well-supported, understood, measured and quantified fact. It may even be derived and understood from more fundamental laws like the Maxwell equations together with an appropriate atomistic model for matter.
BTW: You again demonstrate that you lack a fundamental understanding of the concept of light altogether. There is simply no way to individually send a single wavelength through a prism in an experiment. You will always be concerned with spectral distributions, even for narrow bandwidth laser sources! But this is, admittedly, the smallest of errors you make, with the more grave one being that you lack an understanding of the scientific method.
Also, I am curious: Did you test yourself whether gravity works as Newton described it? Did you ever jump off a cliff to find your velicity to increase linearly with time? I’m afraid not, but other people tested it (well, not by jumping) and found precise agreement. They even made quantitativly testable predictions of experimental outcomes. Your car will use the mechanical principles so eloquently framed by Newton, yet you didn’t test them all, did you? And so does your camera use the different refrangibility of colors. Or binoculars for that matter which truly use prisms directly. They are color-corrected in fact to counteract the measurable color dispersion effect. It should be unneccessary to state it again, but of course there is abundant evidence in the scientific literature to support this (including my miniscule contributions) contrary to your laughable claim (again, abstracting from the fact that you can only send spectral distributions of colors through a prism).
You may now apologize if you understand the above and the previous email in full.
Frustratedly,
Markus
Dear Markus,
Last year when I received your email, cited in full above, I had a good look at your usual array of childish assumptions and their commensurately stupid and even more infantile extensions, I smiled and then decided to leave you continuing to bask in your pompous ignorance for the time being. Today, however, when I happened to stumble across it once again I suddenly realised that it in fact would be the best starting cue for this particular post. So here I am, ready to address more points than you can even imagine--let alone raise.
Leaving aside your incoherent ranting about dispersion, Snell's law, spectroscopy, etc. let me first tell you why I asked you conduct a proper experiment in order to confirm once and for all that Snell's law is indubitably valid.
If you google the most relevant terms concerned with the subject of colour dispersion you will find that basically all sites that cover the issue use one and the same setup in every case. Specifically, starting with a version of Newton's experimentum crucis they separate colours from a dispersed beam of white light and thereof proceed to pass them through prisms placed at minimum deviation and finally compare the results according with Snell's refractive equations. Now, to my mind that particular method was fraught with danger, especially when used exclusively, as it seemed to be to the best of my research. (Why fraught with danger I'll tell you in a moment.)
And there was an additional reason for my request. I knew you simply had not only the knowledge and expertise to address the issue properly: You also had far superior means than my Kmart laser pointers and prisms.
Now, regarding my suspicious outlook towards Snell you'd be wise to treat it carefully, for I not only have a much firmer grasp of the subject than you'd be willing to consider, but that I have also found such a beautiful and healthy reason for dispersion that will make your heart skip a few beats when you will hear it.
Being aware that Snell developed his law a long time before Newton himself came unto the scene made me wonder how the man could have possibly managed to conceive of such an apparently accurate tool of assessment without having a real understanding of how white light was dispersed by a prism in a full spectrum of colours. Had Snell developed his law after Newton I certainly wouldn't have had a problem with the idea. But before?! (These days Snell's law is stated to be derivable from Fermat's principle of least time, but we should not forget that Snell's law was created some 30 years before Fermat laid down that principle.) Nonetheless, in time I came to realise that one could rather easily begin with compiling empirical results from prismatic observations, combine then those with certain mathematical and geometrical principles, derive symmetries by relating observational results and variables, unite all of those via some binding coefficients and finally use the recipe to practically enforce, define and in the end 'standardise' the whole industry, so to speak. In fact that has been the mainstream practice since those very times. And that is a most perilous methodology. So perilous that by now it has contaminated your mob so chronically that you seem to have all become decidedly impotent to see, or even imagine, how blatantly wrong your celebrated optical doctrines are.
...dispersion is, contrary to your baseless and evidently uninformed claim, a century-old well-supported, understood, measured and quantified fact.
There is only one thing I can say about the above statement: that when all current facts are considered you have to be either a genuine prophet or a fair dinkum fool to make it. Time will undoubtedly reveal the truth of that matter. (And at this point I should also tell you now the percentage figure I got from Markus Selmke in regard to the little story I shared with you at the beginning of this post, even though I suspect that most of you guessed it already. The figure was, yes, exactly 100%.)
If Markus Selmke understands perfectly well what dispersion is he certainly knows more about it than at least one of the creators of QED ever did. I'm referring here to none other than Richard Feynman, who candidly admitted in these videotaped lectures that he did not understand what exactly happens in the interaction of light with different media. The only thing the great man admitted that he could say on the subject was what effects appeared to unfold under the eye of a careful observer. As my friend Michael Heffron pointed out to me not long ago, when it comes to the subject in question what a genuine physicist of these times can only say is what Sheldon Cooper said in one episode of The Big Bang theory: "I can explain it to you, but I can't make you understand".
Now that is one thing I have always known myself. Furthermore, that is exactly the reason why I have embarked all these years ago on my personal foray into the subject. As most laymen out there, I simply did not understand what our crop of physicists were talking about so I set out (on my own) to change all that. Yes, I know, it was rather typically arrogant from someone in my position to even imagine that I could do that, but that is the truth and that's what I did. Moreover, that's not all either, for these days I have become even more arrogant, if you will, for these days I am here claiming that I do understand what happens when light interacts with different media, creating the chromatic dispersion that is observed in prismatic experimentation and the atmospheric optics phenomena in the process. Moreover still, in contrast to what Sheldon Cooper said (and to what a genuine physicist should say on the subject of light-matter interaction) I am asserting here that I can not only explain the subject to you, but that I can also make you understand. Make of this what you will, just don't make it in haste. Stay with me.
-----------------------
Since I have always been a layman who dared to preach in the conventional temple you can imagine that my 'sermons' are vastly different to those that have pharisaically been preached to the world for a number of centuries now. For instance mine contain very little mathematics, while theirs are by and largely chanted in that language. Furthermore, my own presentations are routinely embedded in familiar pictures, while theirs are most of the time encrypted in complicated graphics, charts and other similar concoctions of arcane data. But perhaps the greatest difference between our two forms of expression is the fact that my own language is very simple while theirs is convoluted and alien to the majority of those listening. Then I must also mention that their expositions can often put a dizzying spell on their audience, while mine are most of the time noticeably un-impressing even the best of those genuinely trying to feign some degree of interest. What can I say, the truth is that we have always come to the same temple, but always from the exactly opposite ends of the town: when I come from the South they come from the North, and when I happen to arrive from the East they invariably choose to do so from the West👍👎👉👈.
But let me give you next a number of other discrepancies between us that are more relevant to our current bone of contention.
As a concrete example, take Newton's famous experimentum crucis and compare it to mine. (Yes, I do have one of those myself--see below.)
In spoken language: I laid down on a flat surface a short message written on a piece of paper, I then positioned my eye on a line of sight running perpendicularly along the same plane and finally I slid a prism in between them. Hello.
That was my experimentum crucis, in a nutshell.It was crucis because it was due to it that in a swift period of time I managed to learn the most important things about what happens (about what really happens) in all prismatic interactions between light and matter. See the pictures I will drop below and think a little, if you really want to see where I'm coming from and where I'm heading to. Alternatively, make an effort and read all my previous posts. Otherwise consider leaving this site (right now, please) for I'm surely not interested in your company either😎.
Let me now show you the main reason that had led and driven me to the entire process. See the picture below and remember one particular prismatic observation, which Newton had been well aware of but left alone (without any explanation).
The observational fact in question is that when a beam of white light is looked at directly with the naked eye, which is a so-called subjective observation, the order of colours in the spectrum is reversed--VBGYOR instead of ROYGBV. As we know, Newton was well aware of that fact but he never left anything more to us on that subject beside casually mentioning it in his Opticks. Now to my mind that showed that he did not have any plausible explanation for it and that he sure as hell wasn't going to admit it. And indeed that was to eventually become poignantly evident when he categorically refused to discuss that subject when Lucas mentioned it in one of his letters.
In modern physics one consideres [sic] the theory of rainbows to be a settled field of optics. All conventional optical theories (geometrical optics, wave optics and quantum physics) provide an [sic] unified understanding of rainbow phenomena.
Thus is stated in this website, which was kindly recommended to me by Dr. Markus Selmke, of Leipzig University, (even though he needn't have bothered, really, since I had been aware of that site long before the good Dr. took the time to point it to my attention some time last year). Thus is stated in that particular website and, more importantly, thus is believed in the conventional quarters. But I beg to differ, and I'm doing so for very good reasons. Nonetheless, and needless to say, my defiant attitude towards the conventional wisdom regarding the rainbow phenomena has been met with the same degree of contemptuousness and virulence as in my past endeavours of the kind, so I'd like to assure you, all and sundry, that there is nothing anyone can do to get beyond the thickness of my presently long-trained, well-adjusted skin.
I am a sceptic. I do not take anything in without subjecting it to careful scrutiny. Regardless of its source, origin, provenance, backing or accreditation. I am a sceptic and anything I choose to believe in must invariably pass the test of my own scrutiny. Period.
I was suspicious about the validity of the conventional understanding of rainbows ever since I first learned about it, which happened to be on January 1, 2015. I was suspicious especially about the ray tracing description of how, supposedly, the image of the rainbow comes to the eye of the observer. I'm basically referring here to the description that has remained with us since Descartes' time, of course.
But to an even greater extent I am referring here to the description that is depicted in the image below.
When it comes to dealing with the conventional description of the rainbow the plain and simple truth is that over the years I have had a pretty good degree of success, and that I have also acquired a commensurate degree of experience in the matter. Take for instance the manner in which I resolved, and successfully defended, one of Newton's most prominent and unexplained prismatic conundrums--which was concerned with finding the reasons behind the known observation that the distribution of the spectral colours is reversed when a source of light is viewed directly through a prism, instead of being cast onto a screen.
Now I have talked extensively about that particular event in the past, but here I shall briefly touch on it once more, for two substantial new reasons. Firstly, because when I discussed it here and here and especially here I did it under a different set of circumstances and context. Secondly, because in the context of our current discussion that particular observation and the specific manner in which it was conventionally treated is more relevant than any other.
To see where I intend to go with this remember what I said earlier about the main reason for which I had become suspicious of the conventional description of rainbow formation-observation right from the very start of my initial foray into the mainstream understanding. Then, look carefully and ponder at the picture I am next dropping below.
And now think along with me.
I'm looking at the picture of a triangular prism which shows the spectrum created by a beam of light that entered it via a narrow, horizontal slit. As the spectrum in this picture shows an inverse (VBGYOR) distribution of colours instead of the usual (ROYGBV) display, Newton's only comment in regards to this particular observation was: "Prismaticall colours appeare in the eye in a contrary order to that in which they fall on the paper".
Then I remember how more recently a number of very important conventional physicists tried desperately to show that there was in fact quite easy to explain--in the spirit of the reigning theoretical understanding--the spectral display above.
And then, more recently, I remember how a while ago I was browsing my saved emails and re-read all the emails I had received from Dr. Selmke. There was a lot to read. Dr. Selmke's emails were long, and involved. Nonetheless I went through all of them. When I finished I suddenly decided to answer to each and every single argument he raised. And that took a long time. He'd raised a lot of arguments.
But I remember most recently how one day I took a good and hard (and long) look at all the staff I had gathered for my reply to Dr. Selmke's arguments and I felt satisfied that I had enough of it to begin laying it down.
Now, yesterday, I realised how long it would have taken me to write down everything I'd had in mind about that. And that took time. So I instantly decided that I wasn't to lay down and answer to every single argument raised by Markus Selmke. Instead, I will answer to all those arguments that I deem important enough to play decisive parts in the our optical saga.
The body of conventional evidence regarding the rainbow phenomena is an amalgam of great diversity. And, fascinatingly--but hardly surprising--all those arguments whether great or small play decisive roles in the matter. Take for instance the conventional claim that sun's light rays are virtually running on parallel paths when they hit the earth. Now that may seem to some to be just a minor issue in the play. I can tell you that it certainly seemed so to me for a long time. But the real truth is that it plays a major role, in the wholeplay.
The subject of the supposedly parallel light rays is one that mystifies the common thinker. So much so that he continues to raise this issue in physics fora even though there is a prolific amount of conventional answers in that regard everywhere online. And one must wonder why that is so. After all, by all accounts it appears that no counterargument offered over the years against that particular belief has managed to raise even an eyebrow in the conventional quarters. Nonetheless, there is a very simple way to show why the idea of virtually parallel
sun rays must be wrong. Watch carefully the video below.
The video is pretty much self-explanatory. Thus one can see that in the instances when divergent light was used the rainbow projected on the wall was quite well defined: it was perfectly round, with the spectral colours showing vividly all along its circumference. That pacifying situation changed dramatically, however, as soon as I adjusted the focal length of my LED torch, collimating in the process the divergent light into a beam of reasonably parallel rays. Indeed, as soon as I rendered the light parallel the former well-defined rainbow with vivid spectral colours metamorphosed into a fairly diffuse circle of white light. Surprised? I have to confess that I too was a little surprised when I first saw it, before quickly realising that instead of getting surprised I should have anticipated that result well before any subsequent experiment. In fact I'm going to say that even our conventional physicists should have really made the same anticipation, even though they are still a fair distance behind in the race for knowledge and understanding of the optical phenomena. Let me explain why I said that.
Now, in as far as we are concerned the simple truth is that we have learned a long time ago that when it comes to the spatial distribution of the spectral colours in a beam of white light the reality is as clear as daylight: in any beam of white light the colours that makes it "white" are invariably marching in a specific order. That invariable order of spatial distribution is VBGYOR along the longitudinal axis. To us, there's not even a shadow of a doubt about that. To us that is a fact. An established and proven fact. So much so, in fact, that when I wrote about it (some ten years ago now) I called the simple experiment that confirmed it my own personal experimentum crucis. To the conventional physicist, however, that fact has remained a gargantuan stumbling block and a prohibitive barrier to this day (in spite of all the many times and instances when that stultifying handicap rightfully came to bite them on the ass over and over again, over the years). (And, of course, that's not all either--for when you make such a poor decision in the past the longer you continue to hang on to it, the deeper, the lower and the further it will exile you into wilderness.)
A beam of white light, then, whose rays are running parallel to each other, it will only be able to convey and display just one colour at any given point for as long as it will remain parallel: White. No need to say any more than that.
On the other hand all light rays that are diverging spatially whilst travelling from one point to another will invariably display the full array of the spectral colours in the same, unadulterated VBGYOR order.
That's why a picture like the one I'm about to drop below will show those colours. Think about it for a few moments on your own whilst you'll be watching the picture below. Think about what I have just said a few moments ago, forget about what you have learned from the conventional physicist about diffraction, blah, blah, blah, and you should have little trouble making sense about the colours displayed. (The pic, btw, shows the result of a camera flashlight cast on the screen of a digital LED TV.)
Before moving on to another subject of great interest in the rainbows phenomena I just want to reassure those who might think that we've dealt a little too swiftly with the idea of virtually parallel sun rays that we shall come back to that topic very soon. Just as we'll also come back to the subject of diffraction, to be sure. For now though we'll turn our attention to another major sticking point in the common thinker's arsenal of questions. This particular subject is very important for anyone with a genuine desire to understand how truly rainbows work. So if you're one of those I'll ask you to look for your favourite triangular prism and to put it somewhere near your monitor, for very shortly you will need it.
There is another subject of great interest to the common thinker with a love for rainbows, but which is much less discussed in the major physics fora--by and large because our conventional physicists have much less to say about it than in the other cases. This particular subject is concerned with how do raindrops can work together in such an effective manner that they manage to display for us basically only one big rainbow, in spite of the fact that each and every one of those complotting raindrops can also display their own individual mini rainbow- copies. Now, when the common thinker asks the conventional physicist to explain how raindrops manage to achieve such a feat the only answer he gets is that it has been empirically established that the totality of raindrops in a curtain of showers, say, are undoubtedly behaving in the light of the sun very much like a single droplet of rain, and that that's why we see only one big rainbow, instead of a myriad of small ones. Fair enough, I'd say to that, but we can do a lot (and I mean a looot) more than that in order to convince the rightfully sceptical common thinker that he is really not just taken for a quick ride around the block.
OK. We'll begin by looking at the pictures below through a prism. (I wager that I do not need to explain why through a prism instead of a spherical lens, for example. Or indeed that by using a triangular prism we can be reasonably confident that basically all other known optical tools are behaving and responding in a like manner.) That being said I will next reiterate a handful of pointers about how you ought to conduct the observations below in order to extract the maximum amount of benefit from them.
First make sure that you position yourself comfortably in front of your computer monitor at a distance of about 50 cm from it. Then, with your favourite hand (which I'll assume to be the right one) hold your prism oriented with its apex to the left and slowly stretch your arm forward toward the monitor until the front side of the prism is almost touching the screen. Keep in mind that there is no need to alter your position (by trying to follow the prism with your eyes towards the screen, for example) for you should be able to easily look through it from where your original position.
Next, look carefully through your prism at the first picture below and you should be able to see that from that very close distance to the screen your prism will display the regular spectral colours, albeit as very narrow chromatic bands. the spectral colours will be shown to be split in two halves: one half consisting of the blue-violet part (which should be visible on the left side of each white rectangle, toward the apex of the prism) and with the other half being formed by the yellow-red combination at the opposite side of each rectangle, toward the base of the prism. Some of you may also distinguish a hint of a green band of colour, if your prism is a little more distant from the screen (than my own particular distance, for instance). It is desirable that you conduct your observations slowly and with care, so please don't rush. Otherwise you run the risk of hindering the full potential of the experience.
Next, when you are satisfied with your observation from that particular distance start drawing very slowly the prism toward yourself, continuing to observe what happens to the original chromatic display with every little step you take. Once again I'll ask you to not rush at any point, for as you should notice things change quite quickly in the spectral display that is unfolding right before your very eyes. As you'll be drawing the prism closer and closer to your observing eye you will see radical changes taking place in the colours displayed, and I truly believe that if you'll pay the right attention to those changes you should certainly begin to envisage new insights, new possibilities, new potential scenarios.
Lastly, for the time being, please continue your observations in the same manner and with each picture shown below. What we are aiming for, in effect, is to look at each particular picture from as many relative distances as possible, for it is in this manner that you should begin to see the real truth about rainbows and indeed the entire optical phenomena, in general. I can tell you that in my own case I have conducted these observations--and many others on top--starting from a virtual zero distance between my prism and the screen to distances in excess of 7 metres. And with this being said I will now bid you goodbye and hope to see you again very soon. Take care.
