(Swim Journal, April 7, 2020)
It’s hard to believe what it feels like to see the shore so distant and to feel cradled by the ocean. I’m overzealous about almost every aspect of it. In the past I’ve been a regular at the outdoor Red Hook public pool, one of the eleven that Robert Moses built in 1939 during the depression. There are many different impressions and sensations that I want to record because swimming has been an important aspect of my mental well being, and it’s now taking on a larger creative dimension. It feels like my imagination is stirred by the movement of my body and the perception of light bending as it enters the water. It’s called refraction, which is a result of the wave nature of light.
1
Light slows as it travels through a medium other than vacuum (such as air, glass, or water). This is not because of scattering or absorption. Rather because, as an electromagnetic oscillation, light itself causes other electrically charged particles such as electrons, to oscillate. The oscillating electrons emit their own electromagnetic waves which interact with the original light. The resulting “combined” wave has wave packets that pass an observer at a slower rate. The light has effectively been slowed.
2
When light enters, exits, or changes the medium it travels in, at an angle, one side of the wavefront is slowed before the other. This asymmetrical slowing causes it to change the angle of its travel. Once light is within the new medium with constant properties, it travels in a straight line again.
The other objective details that impact the physical and the psychological experience of a swim are the temperature of the water, the size of the surf, the wind, the light, cloud cover, hydration, and fatigue.
It’s hard to believe what it feels like to see the shore so distant and to feel cradled by the ocean. I’m overzealous about almost every aspect of it. In the past I’ve been a regular at the outdoor Red Hook public pool, one of the eleven that Robert Moses built in 1939 during the depression. There are many different impressions and sensations that I want to record because swimming has been an important aspect of my mental well being, and it’s now taking on a larger creative dimension. It feels like my imagination is stirred by the movement of my body and the perception of light bending as it enters the water. It’s called refraction, which is a result of the wave nature of light.
1
Light slows as it travels through a medium other than vacuum (such as air, glass, or water). This is not because of scattering or absorption. Rather because, as an electromagnetic oscillation, light itself causes other electrically charged particles such as electrons, to oscillate. The oscillating electrons emit their own electromagnetic waves which interact with the original light. The resulting “combined” wave has wave packets that pass an observer at a slower rate. The light has effectively been slowed.
2
When light enters, exits, or changes the medium it travels in, at an angle, one side of the wavefront is slowed before the other. This asymmetrical slowing causes it to change the angle of its travel. Once light is within the new medium with constant properties, it travels in a straight line again.
The other objective details that impact the physical and the psychological experience of a swim are the temperature of the water, the size of the surf, the wind, the light, cloud cover, hydration, and fatigue.