P3D Re: Pot of gold

[Ronald Beck <ronald-beck@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > I just thought of a way to profit from stereo photography. Now we can
> > all put our knowledge of stereo to use. I was looking at a rainbow this
> > afternoon and got a great idea. Imagine taking hyper-stereo pictures of
> > a rainbow. By looking at the resulting images, you could pinpoint
> > exactly where the pot o'gold is at the end of the rainbow. By the way,
> > if the rainbow is complete, is there gold at both ends? Should we use a
> > pair of Polaroid cameras so that we get there before the leprechaun
> > finds the gold? How wide of a base would you recommend?
> > RDS
> 
> I'm sorry to say it but were you to pinpoint the gold, you 
> could still never get it.  The rays of light coming from a 
> point at the rainbow's end into the left lens of a stereo 
> camera are at precisely the same angle as the rays 
> coming into the right lens, because of the geometry of the 
> raindrops, refraction, etc.  Therefore, those lines are 
> parallel, and the end of the rainbow mus itself therefore be 
> at infinity.  Since you can't travel an infinite distance in a 
> finite time, you would never reach the pot of gold.


I still remember the day I was driving home and there was a light mist
out.  All of a sudden, the sun came out and there was a rainbow ring
right over my van engine.  It was an awesome sight and I wish I could
have taken a 3d picture at the time.

Unfortunately, there was no gold under the hood.  Apparently it was only
a promise that we would get home safely before the A/C compressor went
out, which it did as I drove it in to the dealership the next day!

Ron


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