Rayleigh scattering
E179225
Rayleigh scattering is the physical phenomenon in which light or other electromagnetic radiation is elastically scattered by particles much smaller than its wavelength, explaining effects such as the blue color of the daytime sky.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Rayleigh scattering canonical | 6 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1571196 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Rayleigh scattering Context triple: [Lord Rayleigh, knownFor, Rayleigh scattering]
-
A.
Raman effect
The Raman effect is a spectroscopic phenomenon in which light scattered by a material undergoes a change in wavelength due to interactions with the material’s molecular vibrations, providing a powerful tool for chemical and structural analysis.
-
B.
Airy disk
An Airy disk is the central bright spot in the diffraction pattern formed when light passes through a circular aperture, fundamentally limiting the resolving power of optical systems.
-
C.
Fraunhofer diffraction
Fraunhofer diffraction is the far-field diffraction pattern of waves, typically light, observed when both the source and observation screen are effectively at infinite distance or made so with lenses, producing characteristic interference patterns.
-
D.
Stokes shift
Stokes shift is a phenomenon in spectroscopy where the wavelength of emitted light is longer (lower energy) than that of the absorbed light, commonly observed in fluorescence and phosphorescence.
-
E.
Poisson spot
Poisson spot is a bright point of light that appears at the center of the shadow of a circular object due to wave diffraction, providing striking evidence for the wave nature of light.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Rayleigh scattering Target entity description: Rayleigh scattering is the physical phenomenon in which light or other electromagnetic radiation is elastically scattered by particles much smaller than its wavelength, explaining effects such as the blue color of the daytime sky.
-
A.
Raman effect
The Raman effect is a spectroscopic phenomenon in which light scattered by a material undergoes a change in wavelength due to interactions with the material’s molecular vibrations, providing a powerful tool for chemical and structural analysis.
-
B.
Airy disk
An Airy disk is the central bright spot in the diffraction pattern formed when light passes through a circular aperture, fundamentally limiting the resolving power of optical systems.
-
C.
Fraunhofer diffraction
Fraunhofer diffraction is the far-field diffraction pattern of waves, typically light, observed when both the source and observation screen are effectively at infinite distance or made so with lenses, producing characteristic interference patterns.
-
D.
Stokes shift
Stokes shift is a phenomenon in spectroscopy where the wavelength of emitted light is longer (lower energy) than that of the absorbed light, commonly observed in fluorescence and phosphorescence.
-
E.
Poisson spot
Poisson spot is a bright point of light that appears at the center of the shadow of a circular object due to wave diffraction, providing striking evidence for the wave nature of light.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
light scattering mechanism
ⓘ
physical phenomenon ⓘ |
| affects |
astronomical observations
ⓘ
optical communication through atmosphere ⓘ remote sensing measurements ⓘ |
| appliesTo | particles much smaller than the wavelength of radiation ⓘ |
| causes | partial polarization of skylight ⓘ |
| contrastedWith |
Compton scattering
ⓘ
Mie scattering ⓘ Raman scattering ⓘ
linked to:
Raman effect
|
| crossSectionDependsOn | particle size to the sixth power for small particles ⓘ |
| crossSectionProportionalTo | 1/λ^4 ⓘ |
| dependsOn |
polarizability of scattering particles
ⓘ
refractive index fluctuations ⓘ |
| energyChangeOfPhoton | approximately zero ⓘ |
| explains |
blue color of the daytime sky
ⓘ
bluish appearance of distant mountains ⓘ color of Earth's atmosphere when viewed from space ⓘ color of smoke and colloidal suspensions in some cases ⓘ reddish color of sunrise and sunset ⓘ |
| firstDescribedBy |
John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh
ⓘ
linked to:
Lord Rayleigh
|
| intensityProportionalTo | 1/λ^4 ⓘ |
| isElastic | true ⓘ |
| isSubtypeOf |
coherent scattering
ⓘ
elastic scattering ⓘ |
| lessEffectiveAt | longer wavelengths ⓘ |
| mathematicalDescriptionUses |
classical electromagnetic theory
ⓘ
dipole approximation ⓘ |
| moreEffectiveAt | shorter wavelengths ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Lord Rayleigh ⓘ |
| occursFor | molecules in air such as nitrogen and oxygen ⓘ |
| occursIn |
Earth's atmosphere
ⓘ
linked to:
Earth’s atmosphere
gases ⓘ liquids ⓘ planetary atmospheres ⓘ solids with small inhomogeneities ⓘ |
| occursWhenParticleSizeIs | much smaller than wavelength ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Mie theory
ⓘ
Tyndall effect ⓘ |
| requiresCondition | particle diameter much less than wavelength (d << λ) ⓘ |
| scatters |
electromagnetic radiation
ⓘ
light ⓘ |
| studiedIn |
astrophysics
ⓘ
atmospheric optics ⓘ climate science ⓘ optics ⓘ |
| usedToCorrect | atmospheric effects in satellite imagery ⓘ |
| wavelengthDependence | inversely proportional to the fourth power of wavelength ⓘ |
| yearCharacterizedApprox | 1871 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Rayleigh scattering Description of subject: Rayleigh scattering is the physical phenomenon in which light or other electromagnetic radiation is elastically scattered by particles much smaller than its wavelength, explaining effects such as the blue color of the daytime sky.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.