My curiosity was piqued with the Word of the Day from the class announcements the other day, which was about the origins of the word tantalize. The post led me to the Wikipedia article on the Greek mythological figure Tantalus, which was the foundation of my trail.
Tantalus was the King of Phyrgia, who committed some terrible crimes (such as cooking and serving his son to the gods), and was therefore eternally punished for it. His punishment in Tartarus was to stand in a pool of water near a tree with delicious fruit hanging from its branches. Every time he tried to eat some the branches lifted, and every time he tried to drink the water receded-hence the word tantalize.
From there, I continued down the Greek mythology rabbit hole, wanting to learn more about the Greek Underworld, where Tantalus was punished. I learned that the Underworld has 6 rivers which I thought was really interesting, because I'd only heard of the River Styx. Apparently there is also a river of pain, forgetfulness, fire, wailing, and the edge. However, rather than follow up with one of the rivers for my next path, I chose to do a 180 and head for a more scientific thread.
Invisibility (connected to the previous post because the underworld is invisible to the living), is the state of an object that cannot be seen. Apparently, there are different forms of invisibility. The most natural is an object that neither reflects nor absorbs light, i.e. is transparent. Invisibility is also considered a special case of illusion effects in illusion optics. I didn't know what that was, so I continued down the trail.
Here's where it gets really sciency and theoretical. Illusion optics is an electromagnetic theory that can change how an object appears such that it appears exactly like that of another object. For example, making an apple look exactly like a banana, although it still feels and tastes like an apple. It would be a scientific nulling of the concept "seeing is believing." Invisibility is the case where an object would be turned into the illusion of free space, rather than a different object.
Tantalus was the King of Phyrgia, who committed some terrible crimes (such as cooking and serving his son to the gods), and was therefore eternally punished for it. His punishment in Tartarus was to stand in a pool of water near a tree with delicious fruit hanging from its branches. Every time he tried to eat some the branches lifted, and every time he tried to drink the water receded-hence the word tantalize.
From there, I continued down the Greek mythology rabbit hole, wanting to learn more about the Greek Underworld, where Tantalus was punished. I learned that the Underworld has 6 rivers which I thought was really interesting, because I'd only heard of the River Styx. Apparently there is also a river of pain, forgetfulness, fire, wailing, and the edge. However, rather than follow up with one of the rivers for my next path, I chose to do a 180 and head for a more scientific thread.
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| Hades with Cerberus in the Underworld. Source |
Invisibility (connected to the previous post because the underworld is invisible to the living), is the state of an object that cannot be seen. Apparently, there are different forms of invisibility. The most natural is an object that neither reflects nor absorbs light, i.e. is transparent. Invisibility is also considered a special case of illusion effects in illusion optics. I didn't know what that was, so I continued down the trail.
Here's where it gets really sciency and theoretical. Illusion optics is an electromagnetic theory that can change how an object appears such that it appears exactly like that of another object. For example, making an apple look exactly like a banana, although it still feels and tastes like an apple. It would be a scientific nulling of the concept "seeing is believing." Invisibility is the case where an object would be turned into the illusion of free space, rather than a different object.
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