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It's amazing what you can bump into when trying to research a "simple" issue -- in quotes because I thought it'd be simple. I wanted to look up the meaning of "TIR" - which stands for Total Internal Reflectivity. That's the principle used in some LED lights I recently put on the back of my Harley for brake and turn signal lights. They're BRIGHT -- and are the same technology as used on the police and trooper cars you see flashing everybody. (Okay, don't let your mind go there....)

My little research led me from Total Internal Reflectivity to "frustrated total internal reflectivity" (actually, an extremely interesting concept in itself - check it out if you have a couple hours you want to kill), then to evanescent waves and evanescent wave coupling, which led me to impedance of free space, and finally to quantum tunneling. (And yes, they're all related.) That's where I stopped; not because I found what I was looking for, but because I was so overwhelmed at how little I knew, I simply surrendered to my own ignorance.

I still don't know what TIR has to do with the lights on my Harley, though.

But I did learn that it's always true... the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.