Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1119/5.0216437

Publication Title

The Physics Teacher

Volume

63

Issue

3

Pages

215-215

Abstract

Question 1: Why is it easier to see through rain than fog?

Start thinking about this by imagining a fixed volume (V) of water being dispersed into, say, N identical droplets of diameter d. Surface area and volume considerations should lead to the answer in terms of V and d.

Question 2: (a) How "long" (in meters) might such a rain shower or fog bank be?

Hint: Suppose you are looking along a linear stack of S cubes with 1-m sides (through the rain or fog). Each cube contains N drops. If p is the visibility (i.e., the fraction of area not blocked off by the droplets as you look through the stack), express S in terms of p, d, and V. (b) Suppose V = 1 cm3 (10−6 m3) and the visibility p is 10%. Express S for these two situations:

Rights

© Copyright 2026 AIP Publishing LLC.

This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in 

Adam, J. (2025). A question of transparency. The Physics Teacher, 63(3), 215-215. https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0216437 

and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0216437.

Original Publication Citation

Adam, J. (2025). A question of transparency. The Physics Teacher, 63(3), 215-215. https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0216437

ORCID

0000-0001-5537-2889 (Adam)

Download

Share

COinS