How are mirages formed? Detailed answer

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How are mirages formed? Detailed answer

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How are mirages formed?

Imagine a traveler in the desert who is dying of thirst. He looks into the distance and sees a lake of clear water surrounded by dense vegetation. He rushes forward, but the vision disappears, and there is nothing but hot sand around him.

The lake he saw in the distance is nothing but a mirage. Where did he come from? A mirage is a joke of nature, a phenomenon that appears under certain atmospheric conditions. First, we must understand that we see objects because the light reflects off them and enters our eyes.

Usually these rays hit our eyes in a straight line. Therefore, when we look into the distance, we see only those objects that are above the horizon.

And now we come to those tricks that the atmosphere does with the rays of light. In the desert, there is a layer of dense air above the surface of the earth, which can act as a mirror. The object may be out of our line of sight or beyond the horizon. But when the rays of light from it hit such a layer of dense air, they are reflected into our eyes. We "see" this object as if it were above the horizon or in our line of sight. We "see" an object that is actually invisible to us! The reflection of the sky in such an "air mirror" can be mistaken for a lake. This is how a mirage appears.

On a hot day, approaching the top of a hill, it seems to us that the road ahead is wet. This is also a mirage! You see light rays falling from the sky and refracted by hot air above the earth's surface. And it seems that you can see the road itself.

Mirages can also be seen at sea, when images of ships appear in the sky! In this case, everything is explained by the presence of cold air above the surface of the water and a layer of warm air above it. Ships that are beyond the horizon become "visible" as the rays of light coming from them are reflected from the layer of warm air, and we see the ships in the air!

One of the most famous places where you can see beautiful mirages is Sicily. The city of Messina is reflected in the sky, and ghostly castles seem to float in the air. The Italians call it Fata Morgana, after Morgana Le Fay, the evil sorceress who caused these mirages.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What is memory?

Can you remember the alphabet quickly and easily? Is it easy for you to write your name? Can you play the scale on a musical instrument? You may say that you remember all this. But in fact, you have memorized it all. And you learned all this by forming a habit!

In other words, things that were once difficult for you, like naming the letters of the alphabet or playing the scale, become easy and almost automatic when you get into the habit of doing it. Therefore, memory can be described as learning by habit formation. A person has an unimaginable number of such habits, with the help of which he does almost all the daily activities in his life - for example, fastening a button or washing his hands. But imagine that you are reading a book and someone asks you what it is about, or asks you to tell the plot.

Of course, this cannot be called a habit. But if you carefully study the situation, you will see that there is something like a habit. For example, in the usual case, you learn how to arrange certain elements in the appropriate order. And when you retell the plot of a book or its contents, you are doing the same.

Some psychologists believe that all learning (and that also means memory) consists of vast combinations of simple habits. But this does not mean that in the process of learning and remembering, you simply form habits through mechanical repetition or study of some elements.

There are some other factors that influence the situation and allow you to learn and remember better. One of them is the desire to learn, that is, motivation or motivation.

Another important factor is the understanding of what the person is learning. For example, you will quickly learn (or recall) a poem if you understand it. And you will remember it for a long time. In addition, linking new ideas with what is already deposited in your memory can be an important aid in learning.

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