Why does pavement look like water

From the top, it looks like the straw is bent or broken. From the side, depending on where in the glass the straw is, it might look like it grows wider below the water line or even detaches from the part above the water line. Remember that you see objects because light reflects off of them and then travels to your eye. Below the water line, though, the light reflecting off the straw has to travel through the water into glass and then into air.

This light changes medium and speed, so it refracts or bends on its way to you. The top and bottom parts of the straw are in line with each other, but the light from them comes along two different lines, making the straw look broken after your visual system gets done with it.

What Robert is describing is also the work of refraction. Maybe you were driving around one day and thought you saw a puddle on the pavement a little ways down the road. Once you got to the spot where you thought you saw the water, it was gone.

Looking farther down the road, you see another puddle, but that one also disappears as you get closer to it. Light refracts not just when it moves through two different mediums like air and water, but also when it moves through different layers of the same medium that have different densities. As the sun beats down on the blacktop, it heats it up. The road, in turn, heats the air immediately surrounding it, keeping the air just above it warmer and less dense than the air farther up.

Asked 10 years, 5 months ago. Active 3 years, 5 months ago. Viewed k times. I know that it is some kind of atmospheric effect. What is it called, and how does it work? Improve this question. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Nat 4, 4 4 gold badges 22 22 silver badges 37 37 bronze badges. Lagerbaer Lagerbaer 14k 3 3 gold badges 64 64 silver badges 80 80 bronze badges. Mirage is the correct term for a simple inversion like that.

It also appears that the Fata Morgana is in fact a superior mirage. So maybe the German term is more general than the English term, where, as you point out, the Fata Morgana is a special case of mirage. Helder Velez Helder Velez 2, 17 17 silver badges 30 30 bronze badges. Henry Henry 1, 14 14 silver badges 17 17 bronze badges. How thirsty has one to be to dream of water? But the mention of air currents is 'strange'. Yes, there are vertical currents because hot air goes up and it is substituted by fresher air.

And it contributes to a flicker effect. Robert Kyriakakis Robert Kyriakakis 41 2 2 bronze badges. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Linked 0. Related Hot Network Questions. Question feed. Physics Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled.