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You may notice how water or other liquids tend to distort images when submerged. In this experiment, you will use oil and a laser to find out why this happens.
You should notice that the color inside the olive oil is different than the color of the laser. What you are seeing is a process called fluorescence. Olive oil contains a bunch of organic molecules that can absorb one color of light and re-emit a different color. It is this fluorescence that you are seeing when looking to the side of the beam.