19th March 2024, 7pm, Sibson Lecture Theatre 3
Emeritus Professor Paul Strange (University of Kent)
In this talk we discuss how sunlight interacts with water in the atmosphere. This includes a number of atmospheric optical effects such as rainbows, haloes and heiligenschein, all of which can be described in terms of the refractive index of water. Then we explain how to calculate the refractive index of a water droplet from the properties of the individual atoms that make it up. We find that we only need to do the calculations for a cluster of a few molecules, just nanometres in size, to predict these kilometre-sized atmospheric optical phenomena precisely. This demonstrates the power of quantum mechanics. It is predictive over at least twelve orders of magnitude.
The talk is free and open to all. There is no registration required for this talk – just turn up on the day. Doors open about half an hour before the talk begins.
For directions to the lecture theatre, see here.