"For the program Picturing to Learn, Harvard physics students put their heads together with design students from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan to draw the science behind the blue sky. Put simply: sunlight — or white light, containing all the colors of the spectrum — strikes air particles and is scattered. The amount of scattering is greater for short wavelengths of light (which we see as blue) than for long (red), so whichever direction you look the sky appears blue. Ah, but the answer is far more complex. The following images show how students tried to illustrate it."
From Donald G. McNeil Jr., "At the Drawing Board" The New York Times. Sunday, July 27, 2008.
A pack of short-legged sprinters (blue light) competes with long-legged ones (red). Potholes (nitrogen molecules in the air) trip up and scatter more blue runners because of their short stride. BUT: Molecules are not like holes. Light has more than two colors, and doesn't behave like people. (People run at different speeds, and trip even with long legs.)
A bouncer at a saloon lets in long-wavelength colors, deflecting short ones to other entertainments — an indirect path to a human eye. BUT: Molecules don't "bounce" light; they absorb it and then radiate it out. And light doesn't curve.
To get the science right, a final drawing requires numerous color pens and boxes that magnify detail. The position of the observer also matters. Bonus: the figure on Earth at far right, looking across at the horizon, suggests why a sunset is red.
Photo: Aaron Lee Fineman for The New York Times
This was quite a design challenge and I'm not sure if I still fully understand why the sky looks blue. But I still enjoyed seeing the results from this collaboration between artists and scientists. Especially the runners.
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