what I've been doing when I should've been working

[richardthinks]

This is a really good question from xkcd. I was pretty smug about knowing what Rayleigh scattering was. Damn.

This, on the other hand, is pretty much exactly what I think of the balls-on-a-rubber-sheet model. (also this)

This bit on the pools of water for cooling off old nuclear reactor fuel rods might be directly relevant to my game! Especially

Comments

[st_rev]

It's still mostly thanks to Rayleigh scattering, which doesn't say that it's ALL violet light. The scattered light consists of a lot of violet + a bit less blue + a bit less green + ... + not very much red. If it were all violet, it would look violet. If it were uniform in all wavelengths, it would look white. Because it's a weighted combination biased toward violet, it comes out as a pale blue-white. Simple!

[richardthinks]

Thanks for that, I can go back to being happy about that explanation again.
I'm guessing the answer to the mirror inversion thing is that your brain always turns everything right side up?

[st_rev]

The mirror inversion thing is really simple: Mirrors don't reverse top to bottom or left to right, they reverse FRONT TO BACK. The left-right confusion only arises when you mentally try to compare the person in the mirror with yourself by rotating them into your position.

[richardthinks]

duh. Of course. Now I feel really stupid. Oh well, I guess it's better to ask than wonder.