Scientist Urgently Wanted: Can You Explain This Phenomenon?
Hi everyone🙋
I’m looking for experts familiar with physics. I’d like someone to explain the mechanisms behind several phenomena I plan to present soon.
The video shows the first one. The question is: why can water "see" the sun?
I would appreciate any analysis based on the scientific method.
Thank you!
Jack
Good question... I think it’s just physics doing its thing, and it basically comes down to two simple concepts: reflection and refraction.
Think of the water's surface as a giant, slightly messy mirror. When the sun hits it, a lot of that bright light bounces straight off the surface and hits your eyes. That’s just a standard reflection. Because the water isn't perfectly flat and has tiny ripples, it scatters the light, which is why you get that long, glowing line of light stretching towards you instead of a neat, round circle.
The other part of the trick is refraction. When light travels through the air and hits the water, it slows down because water is thicker than air. That change in speed forces the light to bend.
So, the water isn't "seeing" the sun at all—it's just catching the sun's light, bending it, and bouncing it right back at us.
Thank you very much, I'm glad you considered this🙂
Unfortunately, the problem is more complex than it seems.
That's why I asked to follow the scientific method.
Scientific inquiry includes creating a testable hypothesis.
Who can prove that such a phenomenon can occur in a heliocentric system with the sun 93 million miles away in the position shown in the video?
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge through careful observation, rigorous skepticism, hypothesis testing, and experimental validation. Developed from ancient and medieval practices, it acknowledges that cognitive assumptions can distort the interpretation of the observation. Scientific inquiry includes creating a testable hypothesis through inductive reasoning, testing it through experiments and statistical analysis, and adjusting or discarding the hypothesis based on the results.
The scientific method involves making conjectures (hypothetical explanations), predicting the logical consequences of hypothesis, then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions. A hypothesis is a conjecture based on knowledge obtained while seeking answers to the question. Hypotheses can be very specific or broad but must be falsifiable, implying that it is possible to identify a possible outcome of an experiment or observation that conflicts with predictions deduced from the hypothesis; otherwise, the hypothesis cannot be meaningfully tested.