Mirages
Mirages are not optical illusions, as many people think. They are real phenomena of atmospheric optics caused by strong ray-bending in layers with steep thermal gradients. Because mirages are real physical phenomena they can be photographed. Optical illusions, on the other hand, are quirks of human vision in which the observer sees something that does not exist physically. Of course, the distorted images produced by mirages may elicit optical illusions, when an observer misinterprets the scene, hence the confusion of these distinctly different classes of phenomena.A correct definition can be found in the American Meteorological Society's Glossary of Weather and Climate. It states: "Mirage: A refraction phenomenon wherein an image of some distant object is made to appear displaced from its true position because of large vertical density variations near the surface; the image may appear distorted, inverted, or wavering." Mirages form when light rays emitted from a source or reflected off an object are bent as the path of the light ray crosses air layers of different densities. The technical term for this bending is refraction. The degree of bend defines the medium’s index of refractivity and depends on the medium’s dens
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Approximate Word count = 1866
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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