Light, Refraction, Reflection in Diamonds & Gemstones in Jewelry

Our gem cutters incorporate signature cutting techniques in our stones: create optic effects through negative space, using concave surfaces and sylindrical openings to being light out of the gemstone or by using optic dish which acts asa spherical mirror and half lens that opticall expands and contracts images in the stone, and Luminaires, which involves innovating cutting to take the stone to the next level by intersecting and illuminating light passing through it.

Another thing that we look at is optical density and geometry of the stones shapes, facets and placing them at the right places to create critical angle cones, total reflection, luster (flat, polished and shiny surface), grading (proportions, perfection of polish, and orientation of the stone in relation to to its crystal graphic axis), internal angles, and depth of the stone. This factors are important to achieve brilliancy (the proportion of white light that stone is capable of returning back to the eye caused by pavalion facets) , dispersion (light due to prism effects in crown facets which split white light into its spectral components), fire (the display of prismatic colors), beauty (body color), luster (as the appearance of a surface when it reflects light directly to the eye), total reflection (the total light reflected back), refraction (the reduction in velocity of light in denser materials), color intensity (the amount of light returned back ), scintillation (a twinkling effect), angles (something going on at each angle which carries through the design highligthing the colors and optical effects of the stone) and extinction (the amount of darkness or blackness).

We try to achieve "sizzle" between the stone and its optical properties.

The study of light has fascinated physicists throughout the ages. Newton believed it was a particle, Young demonstrated that it has wave properties. This physics model presents light as traveling in very thin beams called rays. Here, we will be considering mechanical waves. This type of wave is defined as a disturbance that moves, or propagates, through a medium. Light waves have much in common with mechanical waves, they share a lot of mathematics. However, for a complete understanding light waves you will need a bit more explanation than will be found here. There are several ways to think about light in physics. One very useful way is to think of it in terms of rays. That is, to imagine light to be traveling in very narrow pencils, or beams. When you do that, we say that you are modeling light as rays. This method allows one to develop an understanding of several light phenomena including common reflections and refractions. It is called the study of ray optics. Actually, the emergent beam above needs to be thought of as being very, very narrow. A ray of light is imagined much like a line is imagined in mathematics. Imagine a ray to be infinitely thin. We use ray optics to trace the path of light.

Morever as the eye moves when carried along the line of the ship it sees the image of the sun moving along the same line as that of the movement of the eye; but it will not be parallel for as the sun moves to the west the line of the images moves in a curve towards the sun, in such a way as to seem finally to unite with the image of the sun when it has reached the horizon.

When the sun during an eclipse assumes the shape of a crescent, take a thin plate of iron and make a small hole in it, and turn the face of this plate towards the sun, holding a sheet of paper behind it at a distance of a braccio, and you will see the image of the sun appear on this sheet in the shape of a crescent, similar in form and color to its cause.

The sun has substance, shape, movement, radiance, heat and generative power; and these qualities all emanate from itself without its diminution.

The solar rays after penetrating the little holes which come between the various rounded particles of the clods take a straight and continous course to the ground where they strike, illuminating with their radiance all the air through which they pass.

If the moon is a mirror of our earth, when it is at the full the earth will be half dark and half illiminated, or perhaps more than half dark. And of the dark things we cannot discern the shapes of the objects within their boundaries.

The adversary says that the light of the moon illumines the portion of the eart seen by it, and for this reasn, as earth is surrounded by water, the only the water reflects the light of the moon, and the earth as it is not smooth or polished it its surface as is the water, does not transmit the image of itself to this water, and so it remains dark, and thus our water shines in the moon with the darkness of the islands which surrounds it.

The month has every month a winter and a summer. And it has greater colds and greater heats and its equinoxes, are colder than ours.

The sun is composed of great number of indivisible parts; and although this sun is possessed of bodily substance its powers are incorporeal consisting of heat and radiance; and since an incorpeal power has no substance not having substance it does not occupy space, and not occupying soace it does not close the aperture, and consequently the passage through this aperture to and fro is permitted to each spirit at the same time.

It is possible that solar rays reduced through a pyramid to a point by the conclave mirror is redoubled in warmth and radiance; as these rays are in the derived pyramid they are thrown back by a similar mirror to an equal distance from the point.

I find that those circles at night that surround the moon, varying in circumferences and in their degree of redness, are caused by the different degrees of thickness of the vapors which are situated at different altitudes between the moon and our eyes. And the circle that is larger and less red is in the first part lower than the said vapors; the second. being less is higher and appears redder, because it is seen through two sets of vapors; ans so the higher they are the smaller and the redder they will appear, for the eye and them there will be more layors of vapors, and this goes to prove that where there appears greater redness, there is greater quantity of vapors.

The moon is not luminous in itself, but it is well fitted to take the characterstics of light, after the manner of mirror or of water or any other shining body; and its grows large in the east and in the west like the sun and the other planets, and the reason for this is that every luminous body grows larger as it becomes more remote.

It may be readily understood that every plannet and the star is farther away from us when in the weat than when it is overhead, by about 3500 miles according to the proof given at the side; and if you see the sun and moon reflected in water which is near at hand it will seem to be the same size in the water as does in the sky, while you go away to the distance of a mile it will seems hundred times as large. And if see it reflected in the sea at the moment of its setting the image of the sun will seem to you to be more than ten miles long, because it will cover in relection more than ten miles of sea. And if you were where the moon is, it would appear to you that the sun was reflected over as much of the sea it illuminates in its daily course, ad the land would appear amid the water like the dark spots that are upon the moon, which when looked at from the earth presents to mankind the same appearance that our earth would present to men dwelling in the moon.

When all that we can see of the moon is illuminated it gives us its maximum of light, and then from the reflection of the rays of the sun which strike upon it and rebound towards us its ocean throws off less moisture to us, and the less light it gives the more it is harmful.

Certain mathematicians contend that the sun grows larger when it is setting, because the eye sees it continually through the atmosphere of greater density, alleging the objects seen through mist and in water seem larger.

Think, then, ehat this star of ours would seem like at so great a distance, and then consider howmany stars might be set longitudinally and latitudinally amid these stars which are scattered throughout this dark expanse.

Sun, I do not perceive in the universe a body greater and more powerful than this, and its light illumines all thecelestial bodies which are distributed throughout the universe.

The stars are visible by night and not by the day owing to our being beneath the dense atmosphere which is full of an infinite numbers of particles of moisture. Each of this lit up when it is struck by the rays of the sun and consequently the innumerable particles veil these stars; and if were not for this atmosphere the stars will always show thestars against the darkness.

First explain the mechanism of the eye, then show how the scintillation of each star originates in the eye, and when the scintillatin of one star is greater than that of another. And how the rays of stars originate in the eye. Some say the sun is not hot because it is not the color of fire but is much paler and clearer. To these we may reply that when liquified bronze is at its maximum of heat it resembles the sun in color, and then when it is less hot it has more of the color of fire.

The surface of water without waves lights equally the places struck by the reflected rays of the image of the sun in the water.

Earth is a star almost like the moon, and thus you will prove the majesty of our universe.

It is said that the stars at night appear most brilliant in proportion as they are higher up, and that if they have no light of their own the shadow cast by the earth when it cones between them and the sun would come to darken them, since these stars neither see nor are seen by the solar body.

The extremities of the moon will be more illuminated and will show themselves more luminous because nothing will appear in them except the summits of the waves of the waters; and the shadowy depths of the valleys of these waves will not change the images of those luminous parts which from the summits of these waves come to the eye.

Moon that shines consists of waters and it serves the body of sun as a mirror which reflects the radiance it receives from it; and that if this water were without waves it would show itself as small but of radiance almost equal to that of the sun, it is necessary now to show whether the moon is heavy or a light body.

Thus if it wre a heavy body-considering that in progression upwards from the earth at every stage of altitude there is an accession of lightness, inasmuch as water is lighter than earth, air is lighter that water and fire thn air and so continuing in succession-it would seem that if the moon had density, as it has, it would have weight, and that having the weight the space in which it finds itself would not be able to support it, and as a consequence it would have to descend towards the center of the universe and to join itself to the earth; or if not the moon would fall away and become lost to it and devoid of radiance. The fact that however these events do not occur as might with reason have been anticipated is a clear sign that the moon is clothed with its own elements, namely water air and fire and so sustains itself by itself in this other part of space.

Some might say that the air which is an element of the moon as it catches the light of the sun as does our atmosphere was that which completes the luminous circle on the body of the moon.

Some have believed that the moon has some light of its own, but this option is false, for they have based it upon the glimmer which is visible in the middle between the horns of the new moon, which appears dark where it borders on the bright art, and where it borders on the darkness of the background seems so bright that they have assumed it to be a ring of new radiance which completes the circle where the radiance of the tips of the horns illuminated by the sun ceases.