Why light is just… cool

In our quest to constantly better ourselves, we are always researching. Here are some of the things I have come across that I think is just cool.

Why the sky is blue

John Tyndall, a clever scientist who succeeded Michael Faraday as director of the Royal Institution in 1867, first discovered why the sky is blue.

Tyndall noticed that when you shone a torch through clean filtered air you can not see the beam but if it is shone though normal air you could often see the beam.

He realised you can only see light beams because the air is full of particles that scatter the light. Tiny dust particles floating in the air scatter blue light more than red and yellow so the sky looks blue.

Ok, this is actually about lightning, but it’s still cool:

Lightning bolts travel at speeds of up to 60,000 miles per second.
A single lightning bolt travels through twisted paths in the air that can be as wide as one of your fingers or from six to ten miles.
A flash of lightning is brighter than 10,000,000 100-watt light bulbs.
A flash of lightning can pulse as much power as there is in all the power plants in the United States in that split second.

Sorry for the randomness, but you’ve got to admit – its pretty cool!