Re: [Phys-l] Interesting Shadows

[chuck britton <cvbritton@mac.com>]

A (perhaps) related question has to do with the shadow that an 
airplane casts on the ground.

Is it precisely the same size as the plane? or slightly larger, or 
slightly smaller?
(or all of the above ;-) )


At 1:39 PM -0800 2/22/11, Marc \"Zeke\" Kossover wrote:
> Howdy-
>
> My school (The Jewish Community High School) has vinyl letters of 
> it's name on a
> window, and on sunny mornings they cast a shadow on the wall across the
> hallway.
>
> If you imagine the shadow made by the letters, you might picture a shadow of
> each of the letters with blurry edges. You might imagine the centers of the
> letters to be bright, but they aren't.
>
> The weird bit is that the darkest parts on the wall are where the holes in the
> letters would be. They are even darker than the shadows of the letters.
>
> You can see pictures at my infrequently updated blog.
>
> <http://kossover.squarespace.com/journal/2011/2/11/weird-shadows.html>
>
> I presume that it's diffraction related. What say you?
>
> Marc "Zeke" Kossover
>
>
>      
> _______________________________________________
> Forum for Physics Educators
> Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
> https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l