Ever wondered why the ocean seems to be blue?? You might say because the sky is blue the reflection of the same is blue...

Simple right?? What if I say there is more to this!

Let's dive straight to it.. Before going, you may want to check below article.

Why sky is blue and sunsets are red?

The above article will give you an understanding of why the sky gets the color blue or to paraphrase it correctly why sky seems blue to us.

Going further from that as to why the oceans get the color blue is what we are going to find out here.

Let's start by correcting one fact that not all of the oceans or water bodies are blue, there are instances where there is a clear difference observed when the color might be different!

There is concept called Rayleigh's scattering which is a reason behind the sky seeming blue. ( REFER ABOVE ARTICLE ) .

Now this type of scattering comes under the domain of elastic scattering where the light gets scattered based on its collision with different gas molecules and changes its course.

Here there is no change in wavelength of a given light.

To put it in a more simple format when rays of light comes in contact with the dust particles or gas molecules present in the atmosphere this is where the whole symphony happens resulting in the blue sky and somewhere a blue sea.

The rays of light which have a certain frequency and wavelength accordingly when come in collision with the particles they scatter when this scattering happens some gets deflected with the same speed and frequency while some rays go through a change in their speed. Either an increase or a decrease which results in change in frequency and thereby change in wavelength. This is called modified scattering or inelastic scattering.

C V Raman or Chandrashekar Venkat Raman when returning from a discourse in Europe was amazed by the bluishness of the Mediterranean sea. He maybe felt there was more to the color than an explanation of Rayleigh's scattering phenomenon! 

He after returning to India along with his students performed experiments after experiments eventually proving that its the modified scattering which gives the water bodies the color and not a mere reflection of the blue sky.

As a result of this phenomenon the white light which makes it way with water molecules tend to move the frequency of light rays into the bluish color spectrum. We do need to understand that this happens for most but not all of the time.

There are many factors which affect the color like depth of the water body, composition and many more making the color resemble like blue, red, turquoise and more!

This research was published in the Indian Journal Of Physics in 1928. Owing to this the British eventually recognized the phenomenon and knighted C V Raman in 1929. In 1930, C V Raman getting the Nobel Prize in Physics which was a first for a non white and Indian person.

This discovery was attributed to Raman and was called the Raman effect!!

That's about it for this post, Until next time keep the geek inside you alive!

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