what is that weird “mirror” like effect on top of asphalt when it gets hot? What’s the science behind it?
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It’s called a “Schlieren Effect”. When light moves from one transparent material to another, it can bend. You see that with a prism, or when looking into a pool of water. It’s because there’s a difference in how quickly light can move through different materials.
It turns out, when you take a single transparent material, but vary how dense it is, the same thing happens – the Schlieren Effect.
In the case of the road, the asphalt absorbs a lot of sunlight and gets very very hot. The air next to the asphalt then gets really hot, and when air gets hot, it expands and is less dense than the surrounding air and the light passing through it bends enough that you see the light of the horizon appear where the road is.
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