Remote Controls

Well, I was watch ing the basketball game yesterday, and then during halftime, those annoucer dudes asked how many sequels there was to "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" and to vote with my Oceanic Digital Remote Control. Well, I voted three and was correct (obviously). But that's not the point of this story...the point is remote controls. How do they work? Well, if you look at the front end there is like a little light bulb, but it never lights up. Thats because it is transmiting infared lights and signals to the receiver on my Oceanic Digital Cable Box, and infared is impossible for human to see because it is not at the right place on the electromagnetic spectrum. But just because we don't see doesn't mean we don't know about it, you know what I'm saying. We know infared lights travel like any other thing on the electromagnetic specturm, in rays and stuff, so they are also under the some of the reflective and refractive rules. Sometimes, when I point my remote at the blank wall behind me and press power, the TV magically turns on. Or when I point it at the white ceiling or at the white carpet, or at pretty much anything of any color at a length. The reason the TV turns on is because the infared beams bounce of the wall and floor and furniture, and are picked up by the reciever, and it changes the channel. The only time this doesn't work is if, like, my hand is covering the remote, or my dog is sitting right in front of the cable box, then the beams don't get from the transmitter to the reciever, and I'll be stuck wtaching the same channel until my dog moves...Look at these awesome diagrams I painted.