What We See

    Nothing is worse than to go fishing and have the sunlight reflecting right into your eyes making it difficult to see fish and most of all, your fly.  That's why they invented polarized sunglasses.  When light travels through the air it is in the form of waves.  These waves are moving in many different directions.  When light hits the water, the waves change from traveling in many different directions to being parallel to the surface. Polarized glasses have a filter which blocks the horizontal waves, therefore blocking out the glare. (High Sight Optometry)

    Also, while looking into the water, the objects you see are not actually in the spot you see them.  This is due to refraction. Refraction is when a light wave gets bent upon entering a medium with a different speed.  The amount of bending that occurs, depends on the types of media. Using Snell's Law, you can relate the indices of refraction for the media to the angles of sight. (GSU)

 

 Snell's Law
From http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/geoopt/refr.html#c3

A free calculation guide for Snell's Law can be found at http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/geoopt/refr.html#c3

 

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