Why Is the Sky Blue, Not Violet? The Ocean Answer Is a Myth

The sky reflects the ocean? Dust scatters blue? Both are myths, and one of them fooled John Tyndall. We follow the real mechanism from Rayleigh's 1/λ⁴ law (blue scatters about 5.9 times more than red) to Einstein's density fluctuations, then ask the harder question: if violet scatters most, why isn't the sky violet? The answer needs your eye's cones, and it also explains red sunsets through 38 air masses, white clouds and blue sunsets on Mars. 0:00 Intro 0:40 Two popular myths 1:55 The air itself 3:39 Why not violet? 4:55 Sunsets, clouds and Mars 7:01 Verdict Sources: Royal Institution, John Tyndall's blue sky apparatus (1869): https://www.rigb.org/explore-science/explore/collection/john-tyndalls-blue-sky-apparatus Rayleigh, "On the transmission of light through an atmosphere containing small particles in suspension, and on the origin of the blue of the sky", Phil. Mag. 47, 375 (1899); overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering E. S. R. Gopal, "Light scattering" (Smoluchowski 1908, Einstein 1910), Resonance 5(4) (2000): https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/005/04/0037-0045 G. S. Smith, "Human color vision and the unsaturated blue color of the daytime sky", Am. J. Phys. 73, 590 (2005): https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/article-abstract/73/7/590/1056162/ NOAA NESDIS, "Why Is the Sky Blue?": https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/about/k-12-education/atmosphere/why-the-sky-blue WHOI, "Why is the ocean blue?": https://www.whoi.edu/ocean-learning-hub/ocean-facts/why-is-the-ocean-blue/ Kasten & Young, "Revised optical air mass tables and approximation formula", Applied Optics 28, 4735 (1989); overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_mass_(astronomy) Lange et al., "Revisiting the question 'Why is the sky blue?'" (ozone, Hulburt 1953), ACP 23, 14829 (2023): https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/14829/2023/ UCAR, Sizes of aerosols, raindrops and cloud droplets: https://scied.ucar.edu/image/aerosols-raindrop-cloud-droplets-sizes NASA JPL, "Curiosity Rover Views Serene Sundown on Mars" (2015): https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-views-serene-sundown-on-mars/ Ropars et al., "A depolarizer as a possible precise sunstone for Viking navigation", Proc. R. Soc. A 468, 671 (2012): https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2011.0369 Narration: synthetic voice. Music: generated. Русская версия: @squared_ru