Quote:Q. Why is it that when I look at an electric light half a mile away it looks as if there were ten or a dozen rays of light going in all directions? R. R. T.
A. Because when you look at an object half a mile away you strain to see it, and under the influence of the strain you imagine rays of light going in all directions so vividly that you seem to see them. It is dor [due?] the same reason that the stars twinkle. If you could look at the light, or at the stars, without effort, there would be no twinkling.
Now, can someone think of a reason why Quackenbush excluded the sentences in bold? Is there some newer, better information on the matter?
This interests me much, because as a child, when I had perfect vision, I didn't see the stars twinkle. It annoyed me very much to read from a book "the reason the stars twinkle". It was something really akward like the light reflecting from the eye to the star and back. I guess it was a scientific book for children. But the explanation didn't make any sense and even worse, I didn't see the stars twinkle. That was my first big WTF moment concerning vision. "Is there something wrong with me?", I thought.
So, am I wrong? Was Bates wrong? Is there someone 20/10 rated who can verify this?
If I'm right, we need to change the words for Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star for not encouraging childen to worsen their eyesight. :o
I think "dor" should be "for". I remember being told as a child that the stars twinkled from cosmic dust drifting in front of them, creating an on-off-on effect. I can barely see the stars at all without glasses. The moon looks like a round glow with the brighter shape of the actual moon inside it, and does not seem to twinkle, at least not to me.
Er...I think I remember something from a Physics textbook that referred to something similar to what Nancy mentioned. If I remember correctly, it said that there are certain particles in space (cosmic dust, stardust, whatever...) which scatter light, so as the light hits these particles, it is scattered one way or the other. This only works though if the particles are moving. In any event, I'm not terribly worried about twinkling stars. Like Nancy, I can hardly see them.
