Imagine!
You as Host ... ... inviting your consociates over for drinks and introducing them to a most unique decorative centerpiece.
The Fish-Out-Of-Water Aquatics Projector is designed to cast actual holographic images from out of the self-cleaning, fully enclosed redundant circulation tank above the plane of its crystal clear, high impact contact surface.
It works by way of a simple yet complex light refraction technique. The tank itself is internally lit and composed of two sealed and diametrically opposed concave reflective shells situated as facing each other in recumbent fashion. The uppermost reflective shell is absent its pineal segment, from which the cast images appear. The angle of vision is perfect for the illusion. The Aquatic Table is positioned slightly lower than the line of sight as your guests are seated.
In their jovial and slightly inebriated state, they will reach to retrieve coctails and swear the fish have commandeered their drinks!-- Macdaddyx1, Feb 08 2008 Real image demo http://www.explorat...al_image/index.htmlLike so? [csea, Feb 08 2008] (?) [csea] beat me to the link. http://www.physlink...cIllusionSaucer.cfmAh well. Here's another. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 08 2008] (?) Optic Mirage http://scientificso....asp_Q_pn_E_3072381Commercially available version [csea, Feb 08 2008] Aaaaauuurrrrrgh. (+)-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 08 2008 "Can someone change it back? There's a tadpole in my Martini"-- skinflaps, Feb 08 2008 One tiny problem - Water is opaque to IR frequencies. Therefore, when you shine bright lights through tanks of water it gets very hot. I used to do optical experiments, and to stop my experimental apparatus getting hot I had a tank of water between the 500W light and the apparatus, which worked fine until the water started to boil.-- hippo, Feb 08 2008 I used to have a little doohicky that did this (not with fish, but with anything else you could fit inside). For the effect to work, you had to stand in just the right spot. You also have to bear in mind the aperature is pretty small. You might see the occasional fish "float" past, but I doubt you'd see the whole aquarium.
Still, it's a neat idea and perhaps a compromise could be made by one-way mirroring the tank so you could still get this effect, but also see the fish through the sides.-- phoenix, Feb 08 2008 Hippo: have you tried flourescent (glow in the dark) lighting? My project is just a showpiece; sounds like your experimentation was more critical.
Phoenix: I think animal rights advocates would have a cow if the tank wasn't somewhat see through. Gotta keep it fish friendly!-- Macdaddyx1, Feb 08 2008 Well, I suppose the answer would be to use white LEDs - they put out hardly any IR but they weren't available when I was doing optics experiments.-- hippo, Feb 08 2008 You could have a table with seats only on one side. Then place part of the dome mirror system above the level of the tabletop, for a better view. But the hole in the middle isn’t bad either.
Sorry I gave you no fish for it. +-- Amos Kito, Feb 08 2008 random, halfbakery