Can You Bend Light With Your Finger? Kannst du Licht mit deinem Finger biegen? ¿Puedes doblar la luz con el dedo? Kun je licht buigen met je vinger? Czy można zginać światło palcem? Consegues dobrar a luz com o teu dedo? Можете ли вы согнуть свет пальцем? Parmağınızla Işığı Bükebilir misiniz? Чи можете ви зігнути світло пальцем?

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Hey guys, Joe here. What do people used to do when they were born before we had all these devices to keep us occupied

Back to the old days people had to be more creative

Next time you feel like life's going too slow

Why not put those idle hands to use and play with the fastest thing in the universe ||||untätig||||||||||||

Here's three experiments that will show you how to bend light itself using nothing, but your own two hands

Try this close one eye look at something across the room

Preferably with a nice straight edge or an interesting pattern next put your finger a few inches in front of your eye

or a few centimeters

It's your choice now

Focus on that object and let your eye relaxed until both your finger and the background are slightly out of focus

when you move your finger side-to-side wanneer u uw vinger heen en weer beweegt

look what happens the

Light seems to bend around your finger for some people it may bend toward your finger for some it may bend away

With a few tries you should be able to do this pretty easily

What's going on here is your finger tugging and the fabric of the universe |||||||ziehen|||||| |||||||смикання|||||| Те, що тут відбувається, - це коли ви смикаєте пальцем, а тканина всесвіту

Well a little bit everything with mass warp space-time by some amount but your finger isn't nearly massive enough for it to be noticeable

Unless you have a black hole in your finger, which would really suck ||||||||||||wirklich schlimm Tenzij je een zwart gat in je vinger hebt, dat zou echt klote zijn

Get it

We'll explain that but first let's try another one for the next experiment close one eye and look at something bright in the distance We will|||||||||||||||||||||||

Not the Sun

Never look at the Sun ever just don't do it

With one eye shut slowly bring your two fingers together just in front of your eye just before they touch

They seem to reach out and melt into one another

Try it with two objects out on a sunny day right before two shadows touch they seem to push out and join

That is cool. You're basically a wizard now bending light and bending dark ||||||巫師||彎曲|||彎曲|

Finally for the third experiment blow is one eye again and slowly bring two fingers together near your eye

While watching the light through a slit in between them you should see a series of dark lines ||||||縫隙||||||||||| ||||||narrow opening||||||||||| ||||||щілина|||||||||||

Form as you move your hand back and forth the pattern of those dark lines can change

What's going on here?

How do these light bending experiments work well let science them and figure it out?

I'm gonna repeat the bending light with the camera is your eye

I'm pointing it at a grid on my computer screen a key to why this works is that we keep the background |||||Raster||||||||||||||||

slightly out of focus

So what's going on here? It has to do with what happens when light passes through a lens in your eye

Or in a camera take any point out here in front of the lens

Light reflects off that point spreads out passes through the lens and it's bent toward a different point behind the lens |відбивається||||розсіюється|||||||||||||||

The spot where the light comes together is called the focal point the lens in your eye 該|||||||||||||||| ||||||||||focal|point||||| ||||||||||фокусна точка||||||

And the camera works in different ways to focus images your eye physically changes the shape of the lens while a camera

Moves it both alter the point where light from different distances comes together |||змінювати|||||||||

When the lens is out of focus light rays from a fixed point don't come together ||||||||Lichtstrahlen|||||||

Exactly on the sensor or our retina the resulting blurred image is formed by separate light rays passing through different parts of the lens ||||||視網膜||||||||||||||||| ||||||Netzhaut|||verschwommenes Bild|||||||||||||| |||сенсор||||||||||||||||||||

If we insert something in between the object and the lens like a finger and block some of those rays

We've actually made part of the image disappear the center of the blurry area shifts to one side now a lens ||||||||||||розмитий||зміщується||||||

inverts the image and our brain or перевертає|||||| keert het beeld en onze hersenen of

camera flips whatever falls on the sensor

So if we focus in front of the background the object appears to move away from our finger if we focus behind the background

It seems to bend toward our finger

This even works when we look at a thin object edge on at its most extreme

We can bend the grid so much that it breaks in

Reality light at any point spreads out at a three-dimensional cone, but this all works in the same way

Putting something between our eye and an object narrows that cone of light

We're not really bending light after all for blocking it block enough light and you create a shadow

Like in our second experiment when the shadows of your two fingers or other objects

Mysteriously bulged toward each other when they got close Загадково|таємниче випиналися один до одного|||||||

This is called the shadow blister effect and to understand how it works you need to understand the parts of a shadow |||||пухир тіні||||||||||||||||

The darkest part of a shadow where an object completely blocks the source of light is called the Umbra ||||||||||||||||||Тіньова зона Het donkerste deel van een schaduw waar een object de lichtbron volledig blokkeert, wordt de Umbra . genoemd

This is the familiar dark part. We typically call the shadow, but around the edges

We're only part of the light is blocked by an object

We have the hazy ur penumbra for your typical shadow cast by a bright light source like the Sun |||туманний|первісна|напівтінь||||||||||||| We hebben de wazige penumbra voor je typische schaduw die wordt geworpen door een heldere lichtbron zoals de zon

We don't see this hazy penumbra around the edge our eyes can't make out the tiny difference in contrast We zien deze wazige penumbra aan de rand niet, onze ogen kunnen het kleine verschil in contrast niet onderscheiden

But when two of these penumbra overlap when two shadows get close enough together

They can block enough light to become visible or invisible

And the shadows appear to bulge out, so what about those dark bands. We saw between our fingers |||||protrude|||||||||||| En de schaduwen lijken uit te puilen, dus hoe zit het met die donkere banden. We zagen tussen onze vingers

most of the explanations out there including several in textbooks say, this is a demonstration of diffraction the ||||||||||||||||light bending| ||||||||||||||||дифракція| de meeste verklaringen die er zijn, waaronder verschillende in leerboeken, zeggen dat dit een demonstratie is van diffractie

Interference of light waves after they pass through something like a narrow slit, that would be really cool

But I'm not sure that's what's happening here and the experts I've asked about it agree for a few reasons However|||||||||||||||||||

first for diffraction to work we usually need a

Coherent light source like a point of light or a laser that sends light waves out only in one direction. We don't have that here узгоджене світло|||||||||||||||||||||||| Coherente lichtbron zoals een lichtpunt of een laser die lichtgolven slechts in één richting uitzendt. Dat hebben we hier niet

Second since different wavelengths or colors of light diffract ||||||||дифрагують

Differently white light should give us some strange colored bands, not just dark ones

Finally to see diffraction through a single slit

it usually needs to be much narrower relative to visible light than the gap you can make with your fingers I

Think there's something else going on here

but I'm not sure what maybe something due to the shape and size of the eye or the

Iris or even an illusion caused by how our brains detect edges or different levels of light or?

Maybe it's diffraction after all even though

I'm almost certain that it's not I think I want you to try this and do some experiments of your own

let me know what you think is going on and why I especially want to hear from you if you're an optical physicist or a |||||||||||||||||||||оптичний фізик|||

neuroscientist or something like that

But everyone is welcome to do some science on this we can solve it you can learn a lot from a little boredom ||||||||||||||||||||||нудьга Maar iedereen is welkom om hier wat wetenschap over te doen, we kunnen het oplossen, van een beetje verveling kun je veel leren

many great scientists including

Einstein made time to be bored to let their minds wander one of Einstein's famous thought experiments |||||||||розумів|блукати||||||

Led to his theory of general relativity

This predicted a different kind of light bending called gravitational lensing where massive ||||||||||гравітаційне лінзування|| Dit voorspelde een ander soort lichtbuiging, zwaartekrachtlensing genaamd, waarbij massieve

Objects warp space-time enough to actually bend light from a distant source

This idea may be inspired by boredom was observed in a 1919 solar eclipse and in later

observations like Einsteins cross ||Ейнштейнові|

Bending of light from gravitational lensing has even offered experimental support for the existence of matter

We can't see dark matter often when we're bored our reflex is to find something to do with these things

But next time you find yourself

Unconsciously picking up one of these things remember that a couple idle hands can inspire awesome things

Stay curious

Ha so being bored can be a good way to inspire curiosity

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