In the service of clouds: my latest library haul to answer a basic question.

This is Richard Feynman's friendly question in his lecture, "Radiation Damping. Light Scattering."

This was his unfriendly answer. I get it, but not really. So I found a different book.

This is from Why the Sky is Blue by Gotz Hoeppe.

As is this...which made some sense, but is certainly uncloudlike.

This neat chart shows the relative sizes of particles in the atmosphere compared to wavelengths of visible light.

Look how much bigger they are than... the lines at the top! Huh?

I kept reading and was greatly encouraged by the "made simple" pitch.

Oh, but it wasn't simple at all. In the penultimate paragraph of this long chapter , the author stated: "The reason is simply that these particles are too big to big to be electrically polarized as a unit by an incoming light wave, and this prevents them from becoming oscillating dipoles."

This sure is simple.

I think the answer might be in here.

But I am going to need a shrinky drink.
(Image source: wwww.victorianweb.org)