Talk:Scattering cross-section

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"This can be seen when driving in foggy weather: the droplets of water (which form the fog) scatter red light less than they scatter the shorter wavelengths present in white light, and the red rear fog light can be distinguished more clearly than the white headlights of an approaching vehicle."

Comparison of red and white light is not very meaningful, since white light is a wide spectrum of light. A more meaningful test would be to see if red is better visible through a foggy medium than green or blue lamps. Also, white headlights are most likely harder to see because the background (the fog) is also "white" (due to the roughly wavelength-independent scattering by the water droplets in fog) so that there is less color contrast than in the case of red light on white fog. Mill haru (talk) 15:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)