Word of the Day: Birefringence
What a wonderful word! I first encountered birefringence in Physics lessons. Its etymology reveals that it is best explained as 'refraction in two different ways'. In other words, a birefringent material is able to take a ray of electromagnetic radiation and split it into two parts, each part emerging in a different direction.
In some more specialised disciplines (e.g. gemology), this can refer to a property that some crystals have of producing two different polarisations or even two different apparent colours when viewed with a single light source. Sometimes, birefringence is taken to be the maximum difference between the two refractive indices in the material.
But you know what made me remember the word? Norse mythology, of all things. The Bifrost Bridge, which links Asgard of the Norse gods with Midgard where we mortals dwell, is also called 'The Rainbow Bridge'. It's not such a large optical leap between birefringent and Bifrost, between a two-way split and a full spectrum, is it?
In some more specialised disciplines (e.g. gemology), this can refer to a property that some crystals have of producing two different polarisations or even two different apparent colours when viewed with a single light source. Sometimes, birefringence is taken to be the maximum difference between the two refractive indices in the material.
But you know what made me remember the word? Norse mythology, of all things. The Bifrost Bridge, which links Asgard of the Norse gods with Midgard where we mortals dwell, is also called 'The Rainbow Bridge'. It's not such a large optical leap between birefringent and Bifrost, between a two-way split and a full spectrum, is it?
etched with acid at 10:43:00 am
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