Saw a ripple
Hiking down a mountainside at mid-day in mid-summer in sunny southern California. Air temperature was in the mid-90s, and Sun was strong, so the temperature over the hard-packed trail-road was likely higher.
Saw a ripple on the trail ahead.
Lots of thermal energy, so enough to bend light is not much a stretch. Yet not.
In like condition, to look horizontally across hundreds of meters of air, seeing ripples is common place, and no surprise. But is this case the ripple was sharply defined, through light from near-vertical Sun, and not something I have seen before.
Three possibilities:
- Thermal energy was enough to induce gradients in the air sufficient to deform light, within a few meters. Possible. Maybe. But not something I have seen before.
- A ripple in reality. My deductive Newtonian-classical mind rejects this possibility.
- A biologic error in my perception. Possible. I am an older human male. Some loss of function is expected. But not something I have seen before.
My rational mind believes in (1), even though I do not know if such distortion is possible in such short distance.
My speculative mind wonders about (2), though there is no proof.
My skeptical mind promotes (3), as I am older. Yet my health is steady, improving, and I have not seen errors of the like. But possible.
Might be as simple as neurons mis-firing. Might be as simple as intense thermal distortions in the air. Or not.
There is something about hiking mountainsides. At times reality feels ... just a bit different.