How come in chapter 2 of The Two Towers...

Elves walk on snow you fucking gimp, and you're complaining about Fraunhoffer effect?

Following with his keen eyes the trail to the river, and then the river back towards the forest, Aragorn saw a shadow on the distant green, a dark swift-moving blur. He cast himself upon the ground and listened again intently. But Legolas stood beside him, shading his bright elven-eyes with his long slender hand, and he saw not a shadow, nor a blur, but the small figures of horsemen, many horsemen, and the glint of morning on the tips of their spears was like the twinkle of minute stars beyond the edge of mortal sight. Far behind them a dark smoke rose in thin curling threads.

There was a silence in the empty fields, arid Gimli could hear the air moving in the grass.

'Riders!' cried Aragorn, springing to his feet. 'Many riders on swift steeds are coming towards us!'

'Yes,' said Legolas, 'there are one hundred and five. Yellow is their hair, and bright are their spears. Their leader is very tall.'

Aragorn smiled. 'Keen are the eyes of the Elves,' he said.

'Nay! The riders are little more than five leagues distant,' said Legolas.

'Five leagues or one,' said Gimli; 'we cannot escape them in this bare land. Shall we wait for them here or go on our way?'

addendum to this: as yellow light has a higher wavelength than most colours, Legolas shouldn't have been able to resolve anything yellow-coloured (like the hair of the soldiers) smaller than ~2 meters across

why are you assuming that elven eyes work just like human made lenses ?

because no matter the mechanism by which the lens operates, the inherent blurriness is caused by light diffracting around the edges of the lens

the only lens that doesnt experience Fraunhoffer diffraction is an infinite one

when you read fantasy, you may need to suspend some disbelief. i'm sorry to be the one to break this to you. i was pissed when i found out the giant floating fire eye was fake too

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TO MY DEAREST, BELOVÉD, FANTASY READING FUCK WITS!
DID YOU KNOW THAT: [I MUST EMPHASIZE THIS]
YOU ARE- IN FACT- READING A FANTASY??? I REPEAT: THIS STORY IS A FANTASY.
FANTASY= MAGICAL STORY= SOMETHING SO FUCKING AWESOME THAT WE SPEND HOURS STARING AT THE DEAD PRESSED PIECES OF A TREE WHILE HALLUCINATING FOR FUN = NOT REALITY; WHICH MEANS: THE LAWS OF MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS, AND BIOLOGY HAVE NO AUTHORITY WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THESE THINLY CUT PAGES. NOW PLEASE, enjoy your book buddy! (＾∇＾)

Kek

At least Tolkien didn't use the mathematically nonsensical term "times smaller than".

But your calculation was based on a human eye

Yeah, what if Legolas is an anime person with fisheyes?

its not rocket science
if X is 20 times smaller than Y, then Y/20 = X

all that matters is the size of the eye, not what the actual eye is made of

What if the aethor of light had a different mathmatical dimensional compass?

>its not rocket science
No, but it is nonsense. And no self-respecting referee would allow that into a journal.

t.Mathematician

Yes exactly, you're purporting that elves have the same sized eye as humans. They're different races. You have no reason to assume they share that feature besides the fact that your only exposure to what Legolas might look like is Orlando Bloom because he played him in the movie.

to be able to make out a 10cm object at 5 leagues, Legolas would have to have eyes at least a couple of feet across and significantly larger than his head

This is really all it comes down to. This shit doesn't matter, OP.

why am i laughing

Weren't you just quoting him sighting the riders of Rohan, though? They'd easily be 10 feet from hoof of the mount to head of the rider, disregarding the minute details of their appearance.

he was able to see the sun glinting off their spearheads and make out the colour of their hair

If yellow has a higher wavelength then what if I deduce that something is yellow because I can't see any other colors therefore the one I wouldn't technically be able to see is the one that it would probabilistically would be?

He obviously remembers the phase and amplitude of all the waves and does aperture synthesis imaging by moving his head.

lmao wait until this kid finds out the world was creating by singing
>b-but the wavelengths! they dont add up!
stfu bro its literally fantasy

That was Tolkien's decision to make.

Digital processing is all lit takes. As a pattern, lit can be compensated for.

No, it's a physical limit. You need bigger sensors, or more sensors, or if you've viewing static objects, the ridiculously superhuman sense of timing and positioning to use the same sensors as though they were multiple sensors (). But now that I think about it, nothing in LoTR counts as a static object in this sense, because the atmospheric turbulence would fuck it up. I suppose he could do aperture synthesis using both eyes, but that's not enough separation.

This is inexcusable and Tolkein has made a mistake.

That said I don't blame him because he's a writer not a physicist or whatever field of science is concerned with this.

Fraunhofer diffraction equation is used to model the diffraction of waves when the diffraction pattern is viewed at a long distance

The mental image this post gave me has made my week

>there are one hundred and five. Yellow is their hair, and bright are their spears. Their leader is very tall

legolas anime eyes confirmed

I do have an answer for this, but i'm not posting it here.

long time no see you massive faggot

Elves already have the ability of prophecy, which crosses both time and space. It's perfectly reasonable for a proper but lesser elf lord to only have the ability to see through space, and not time.

Congrats for doing high school physics. Now fuck off

>expecting any different from boards.autism.org/lit/

Ever heard of magic fuckface?

>implying they're not that big