My 7yo snapped the clip off of a transparent pink plastic pen. He noticed that at the place where it broke, the transparent pink plastic became opaque white. Why does that happen (instead of it remaining transparent throughout)?
This is best illustrated by the pic I took of the [broken pen](https://imgur.com/S8rasqb).
In: Physics
fun fact, architects and structural engineers back in the day would make plastic scale recreations of their designs and apply a load to them. the most concentrated points of stress would become apparent due to this sort of discoloration as well as changes in light refraction due to the stressed plastic becoming thinner. really cool stuff
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