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From: t-peterw@microsoft.UUCP (Peter Williams)
Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.physics
Subject: Re: differences between sound and light waves?
Keywords: macroscopic behaviour
Message-ID: <1181@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 20 Feb 88 06:36:50 GMT
References: <413@prlb2.UUCP> <4110@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <6917@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <4809@ihlpg.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: t-peterw@forward.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Organization: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA
Lines: 23

>There is analogous light behavior.  It's called Cherenkov radiation.
>It occurs when particles travel through a transparent medium faster
>than the speed of light in that medium.  It occurs in the everyday
>world, but not so as you'd notice.
>-- 
>Bill Tanenbaum 

As far as I know the only thing that travels faster than the speed of
light is the Starship Enterprise. As a high school student, I spent a summer
working in a reactor. The workers used to laugh because the guides that 
would occasionally come through would say that the blue aura around
a sample of radioactive cobalt in a bay (ie water bay) was caused by
EM waves travelling faster than the speed of light in water. I believe
the real cause of Cherenkov radiation is that the speed of light in the
emitting medium is greater than that of the water so when the EM
waves enter the water they release enery (in the form of blue light)
as they assume the speed of light of the water medium.

Please correct me if I should err.
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Peter Williams         University of Waterloo coops like to move, and move,
Microsoft Corp.        and move, and move, and move,...
Redmond, WA