Invisible wrote:
> However, it's really damn unusual for a material's electrical or 
> magnetic properties to have any bearing at all on its optical properties.

That's why mirrors made out of wood work so well, after all. :-)

> * Iron is highly magnetic, while aluminium isn't. Good luck telling the 
> two metals apart by their appearence!

Magnetism is a field of photons at a frequency you just can't see.

> * Electricity does not, under any remotely "normal" conditions, produce 
> light or affect it in any way. (E.g., you can't bend light using 
> electricity.) The same goes for magnetism.

Except for photoelectric effects, LEDs, solar cells, florescent light 
bulbs, all that sort of thing.

> Sure, theoretically they're related. But it's not something you see in 
> the real world very often. ;-)

Don't you use a computer? What do you think you're looking at?

> (I still can't figure out why you can use an oscilator to make radio 
> waves, but not light rays...)

You can. It just has to osscilate a lot faster.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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