Cherenkov radiation is the result of the experiment.
A nice reminder that, contrary to the sickly green you usually see in fiction, glowy radiation is usually a lovely blue. But what’s happening? Well, something’s going faster than light! I’m not a physicist, so i might be getting some details wrong, but this is as far as i understand it:
See, the speed of light is a universal constant, the c of e=mc². But that’s only in a vacuum—so much of physics is based first and foremost on activity in a vacuum—and the speed of light through matter is often significantly slower. Instead of 1 c, light moves through liquid water at about 0.75 c. That may still be ludicrously fast, but it’s still slowed down enough that charged particles like electrons can exceed that speed within the medium in question. Exceeding that speed does all kinds of weird, somewhat terrifying and very exciting things to the electromagnetic field of the medium, including the creation of a shockwave in a manner very similar to a sonic boom.
In other words, that bright blue visible radiation is what happens when a particle exceeds the speed-of-light-in-water and creates a luminal boom.
threw together a quick little narrated video showing the Photoshop layer breakdown for my Valentina piece! It’s actually a pretty simple process when you get down to it 👌🏼
This dance is called the Dabke if anyone wants to know more! I’m pretty sure the above version is from somewhere in Palestine, but it’s also a huge deal in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. According to legend, it originated in stamping on the dirt roofs in the houses of the region to compact the mixture of clay and straw and became a dance eventually.
More fun things: A Dabke Flashmob from Beirut in 2011
https://embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js
Inspiration Haven 