06-26-2023, 07:49 AM
Let us see what OP had written about it
“Light in the ocean is refracted, not water. Water in the ocean refracts”
These two lines are riddled with holes. Light refracts only when passing from air to water, or through layers of media with different refractive indices.
A torch shone inside the water wouldn’t give out refracting beams of light.
OP should specify that it is sunlight he’s talking about.
In the poem referred to, ‘refracted as the deepest seas’ is wrong, but manages to convey to at least one reader what the author is trying to say.
The reference is to the green, gloomy light on the forest floor, much in the way that light attenuates in water.
The correct way of phrasing this would be to refer to the aforementioned attenuation, with a nod to Rayleigh scattering, perhaps with a detour into the inelastic phenomenon of the Raman effect as well.
Perhaps if someone could suggest a poetic way to describe that.
The point is that all language is imprecise or even inaccurate. The question of where to draw the line is a subjective one. If it works for the majority of qualified readers - the majority of the target readership that the author has in mind (which may exclude a few) - then it is fine in my book.
In the example of the Eiffel Tower, location isn’t a complicated phenomenon like sunlight attenuation, which gives the sea its blue green colour down below, which is often confused with refraction.
Hence, the former is more jarring to most readers.
“Light in the ocean is refracted, not water. Water in the ocean refracts”
These two lines are riddled with holes. Light refracts only when passing from air to water, or through layers of media with different refractive indices.
A torch shone inside the water wouldn’t give out refracting beams of light.
OP should specify that it is sunlight he’s talking about.
In the poem referred to, ‘refracted as the deepest seas’ is wrong, but manages to convey to at least one reader what the author is trying to say.
The reference is to the green, gloomy light on the forest floor, much in the way that light attenuates in water.
The correct way of phrasing this would be to refer to the aforementioned attenuation, with a nod to Rayleigh scattering, perhaps with a detour into the inelastic phenomenon of the Raman effect as well.
Perhaps if someone could suggest a poetic way to describe that.
The point is that all language is imprecise or even inaccurate. The question of where to draw the line is a subjective one. If it works for the majority of qualified readers - the majority of the target readership that the author has in mind (which may exclude a few) - then it is fine in my book.
In the example of the Eiffel Tower, location isn’t a complicated phenomenon like sunlight attenuation, which gives the sea its blue green colour down below, which is often confused with refraction.
Hence, the former is more jarring to most readers.