James Dreben Apr 30, 2023

#ELI5 Why is water see through?

I'd never thought about it like this. Wow.

Show threadrealcaseyrollins ✝️May 1, 2023

@Jdreben Isn’t it just because a lot of light passes through it? And so if you throw stuff like dirt into the water, which doesn’t allow light to pass through it, the water is harder to see.

Generally, AFAIK, liquids tend to be see-through, solids tend to be opaque, and gasses tend to be somewhere in the middle.

Show threadsj_zero
If you look at the data, water tends to absorb most wavelengths except for this little spectrum in the visible part of the spectrum.

When you get an ir or uv camera it's interesting seeing that a lot of clear things turn opaque, and a lot of opaque things turn clear.
May 1, 2023 at 4:09amWeb