Solved cryptogram
Light striking the inside of a glass wall at a shallow angle cannot get out. It bounces.
Physics Facts, sourced to HyperPhysics, Georgia State University.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 70 letters over 18 different ones, graded medium.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
Beyond a certain angle, refraction has no solution that lets the ray escape, so all of it reflects back inside. Nothing is absorbed and nothing leaks, which is why the effect is called total internal reflection. Bend the glass into a hair thin strand and light poured in at one end has no choice but to follow the strand to the other, around corners and for kilometers. That is the whole principle of the fiber carrying this page.
The claim comes from HyperPhysics, Georgia State University.
- SourceHyperPhysics, Georgia State University
- CollectionPhysics Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length70 letters, 18 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 75 letters
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 77 letters
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 67 letters
- HyperPhysics, Georgia State Universitymedium, 69 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- NISTmedium, 71 letters
- NISTmedium, 79 letters
- CMS Experiment, CERNmedium, 74 letters
- NISTmedium, 71 letters