scott wrote:
>> I find it rather bizare that electronic properties should actually 
>> affect optical ones, but there we are.)
> 
> Well yeh, what's light?

It's a phenomenon that has something to do with electricity, magnetism, 
waves and particles, but nobody really understands what exactly. ;-)

Specifically, light is an electromagnetic wave (or is it a subatomic 
particle?) in a particular frequency range (or is that particle energy?) 
that registers in our eyes due to the chemical transformations it 
induces in certain protein groups.

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

* Impure water is an excellent conductor, while pure water is a very 
good insulator. Yet both substances have almost identical optical 
properties.

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

* 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.

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

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

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