Anisotropy is a difficult concept, although it is often met in everyday life. This paper describes a simple model--knitted patterns--having anisotropic elastic properties. The elastic constant is measured for the force applied in different directions with respect to the knitting direction. It is also shown that the deformation of the knitted…

An ordinary flight became an interesting and amusing event when a look through the window of the plane revealed unusual light spots on the winglet. This article discusses the occurance we saw. Two possible explanations are presented. (Contains 8 figures.)

The introduction of teaching about liquid crystals is discussed from several points of view: the rationale why to teach them, the basics about liquid crystals or what the teacher should teach about them, the fundamental pre-knowledge of students required, the set of experiments accompanying the teaching and the brief report on the already…

Wood is transparent for microwaves and due to its anisotropic structure has anisotropic dielectric properties. A laboratory experiment that allows for the qualitative demonstration and quantitative measurements of linear dichroism and birefringence in the microwave region is presented. As the proposed experiments are based on the anisotropy (of…

This paper reports on a simple experiment which enables splitting incident light into two different modes, each having a colour exactly complementary to the other. A brief historical development of colour theories and differences in a physicist's point of view with respect to an artist's one is discussed. An experimental system for producing…

Light beams in wavy unclear water, also called underwater rays, and caustic networks of light formed at the bottom of shallow water are two faces of a single phenomenon. Derivation of the caustic using only simple geometry, Snell's law and simple derivatives accounts for observations such as the existence of the caustic network on vertical walls,…