[travel] Mirage!

[mattbell]

Photographed on the way to Abu Simbel, about 200km from the border with Sudan.

It reminds me of Laputa - Castle in the sky.

Mirages and fiber optics both work based on slight differences in refractive index between two adjacent materials... in this case, hot air and hotter air..

Comments

[agentsteel53.livejournal.com]

and here I thought Laputa was the installation that's the target of the last plane in Dr. Strangelove!

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

It's many things. Don't go into a sketchy Mexican video store and ask to see La Puta.

[agentsteel53.livejournal.com]

I keep strictly to La Cabra, thank you very much.

[browascension.livejournal.com]

A transport! We're saved!

[steuard.livejournal.com]

As soon as I saw that, I thought of Laputa, too. (Miyazaki's version, anyway; I don't have such a vivid mental image of Swift's original.)

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Nice. I hadn't thought of that interpretation.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Oh... I didn't know it wasn't originally created by Miyazaki.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

In fact, Laputa was I believe the third of the four strange nations described in Gulliver's Travels. Apart from the basic premise (a nation floating in the sky) I don't recall much similarity between the two portrayals. But I haven't read Swift's version in many years.