Drops That Haven't Yet, At Least Not Fully

A water drop on my clothesline from over the weekend. It had been raining all day.

But is it really a drop if it hasn't made it to the ground yet? Do we call it a drop because it will drop sometime in the future? That it has the unmitigated potential to fall to terra firma? Or is it that it has already dropped from the sky and, yet, never made it all the way? Not a very good quality drop if you ask me. It had one job. To fall from the sky and hit the ground.

These, then, would be drops-to-be. Drops that haven't finished dropping yet. Undropped drops. Someone called a clothesline break on the way down and a group got together to chit chat, perhaps about their future potential together as a puddle. Maybe it was an option in their contract that they ticked off while still up there in the cloud. I would like a stopover on the way down. I realize that this will lengthen the duration of my trip, but I'd like to reflect on the moment. An aesthetic approach.

Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, some never do make it all the way down. If it stops raining they may dry right there on the line (which is quite apropos, it being a clothesline and all) and become moisture in the air. Maybe evaporation prior to impact with the ground was their goal all along. It would certainly do away with that final nasty splat.

And what about dew drops? They haven't fallen at all. And maybe never will. There isn't a therapist in the world that would help those little guys.

Maybe we call them drops before they've actually dropped all the way because once they have qualified as certified drops they aren't drops any more. They're something else: splatters, or mud, or wet spots on the floor. Sad, that. Really.

It is almost all right. Do not stress that "bent image". Refraction itself does not cause distortion of the image. If you look through a thin lens like a magnifying glass the image is not bent. The distortion is caused by the shape of the droplet: it is not a thin lens. It is thick and irregular in shape. You get similar distorted image in a curved mirror.

Read more: http://www.physicsforums.com

Refraction itself does not cause distortion of the image. If you look through a thin lens like a magnifying glass the image is not bent. The distortion is caused by the shape of the droplet: it is not a thin lens. It is thick and irregular in shape. You get similar distorted image in a curved mirror.

Read more: http://www.physicsforums.com