Editing 2776: Crystal Ball
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The comic makes the joke that, since a {{w|crystal ball}} is a sphere, anyone trying to use one for {{w|scrying}} or seeing the future would have to deal with this issue as well; the wizard is telling Cueball that he can only make out the parts of his future which are near the center, as the rest are distorted. Spherical aberration is specifically a property of refracted light, and since the crystal ball is presumably not showing an image originating from the other side of the ball (unless it is a {{w|3-sphere|hypersphere}} additionally extending itself though a time-like dimension), the image should not be distorted by both entering and leaving the sphere, perhaps only in the manner of a hemispherical lens (for which the internally formed holographic image-source perhaps could be properly anamorphically adjusted to exit in all directions a coherent manner). However, traditional scrying may have actually relied on spherical aberration, to allow unexpected shapes to emerge from subtleties such as surrounding flickering candles, that the seer may have used to amplify intuition and visions. | The comic makes the joke that, since a {{w|crystal ball}} is a sphere, anyone trying to use one for {{w|scrying}} or seeing the future would have to deal with this issue as well; the wizard is telling Cueball that he can only make out the parts of his future which are near the center, as the rest are distorted. Spherical aberration is specifically a property of refracted light, and since the crystal ball is presumably not showing an image originating from the other side of the ball (unless it is a {{w|3-sphere|hypersphere}} additionally extending itself though a time-like dimension), the image should not be distorted by both entering and leaving the sphere, perhaps only in the manner of a hemispherical lens (for which the internally formed holographic image-source perhaps could be properly anamorphically adjusted to exit in all directions a coherent manner). However, traditional scrying may have actually relied on spherical aberration, to allow unexpected shapes to emerge from subtleties such as surrounding flickering candles, that the seer may have used to amplify intuition and visions. | ||
| β | The comic also incorrectly implies that spherical aberration only affects the edges of the image, possibly confusing it with | + | The comic also incorrectly implies that spherical aberration only affects the edges of the image, possibly confusing it with {{w|distortion (optics)}}. In reality, spherical aberration affects the full field of view. |
The comic is also making use of the vague meaning of something being "hard to see". One would expect that this would mean that Cueball's future is vague or mysterious, as is often the case in many fantasy novels. But in this case, the wizard is telling Cueball that his future is ''literally'' hard to see due to the spherical aberration. | The comic is also making use of the vague meaning of something being "hard to see". One would expect that this would mean that Cueball's future is vague or mysterious, as is often the case in many fantasy novels. But in this case, the wizard is telling Cueball that his future is ''literally'' hard to see due to the spherical aberration. | ||
