Take a look at the following picture:
Why does the light at the bottom of the water form this pattern? I have also seen the same phenomenon in all the swimming pools I've ever visited, of whatever depth they may be. How does this happen?
[Physics] Why does the light at the bottom of the pool form this awesome pattern
everyday-lifereflectionrefraction
Related Solutions
You'll see an image (or piece of an image) of the Sun anywhere the surface of the water is oriented such that the angle between the Sun and the water and the angle between the water and your eye are equal:
For water with many ripples, there will be many such locations, but most will be along the line between you and the Sun, or close to it.
In practice, the surface is never perfectly calm, so the effect from ripples always comes into play at least a bit.
I can think of another possible effect that could contribute, even if the water were perfectly calm: on its way in from the Sun, light goes through the atmosphere, which has varying density/temperature, and so also varying refractive index. Now the situation isn't quite so simple as a bunch of parallel rays reflecting off of a mirror. Curved paths through the atmosphere mean that the incident rays are not necessarily parallel, so reflections from different locations (with different incident angles) can meet at a point (the observer). I'd guess that this would be a smaller effect than the ripples, except perhaps for some very contrived weather setups. The effect would still be spreading out mostly along a line between the Sun and observer, since the atmosphere is for the most part varying in the vertical direction (so refraction in a vertical plane).
Just a guess: The air get warmer inside the cracks and this (warmer plus moving lower pressure air) evaporates the water on the surface near the cracks. The reason why the air gets hotter inside the cracks is that the concrete is still warmer than the outside air, and the cracks have a larger surface to volume ratio.
Best Answer
The pattern on the bottom of the pool it caused by the sides of ripples or waves on top of the water refracting the light of at large angles so they don’t reach the bottom but the peak of the wave refracts the light down so you get the concentrated light showing the formation of the waves on the bottom of the body of water. An OK metaphorical example of this would be how a magnify glass has a central focus point at the centre of the lens (the peak of the wave) and the outsides of the lens magnify light weaker and actually dulls the light (the sides of the wave). I hope this helps.