How come ligts flicker when you look at them from a distance?

Question

I can view the city of Los Angeles from my backyard, and I notice that the street lights and residential lights flicker from a distance.

Answer 1

Air currents and pollution.

Answer 2

The anwer to your question is simple... We use alternate currents everywhere... It means that every second the current is getting negative and possitive values while doing its complete cycle. The flicker is actually the light going on and off 110, 220 or even more times a second. It is so fast that we can't tell the difference when looking at the light but the eye catches it when not looking directly to the bulbs. IF you use direct current like from batteries then the values always stay the same so we could say that the light is always on.

Answer 3

it is how light travels at night

if u notice, when u go by a street light it looks like it has streams of light comming out of it, well that is the light being refracted from the moon off of the plastic dome around the bulb. the plastic dome acts as a prysm

this is the reason of y u see the lights flicker from afar

Answer 4

the air in between is at different temperatures and may have more or less dust in it at different parts in the path to you, this causes the light beam to scatter and seem to "dance" ...

this is why we had to send the Hubble telescope out of the atmosphere into space so the vacuum allows direcdt clear vision... then the flicker here is due to whole plantes and stars bending the light via huge gravitational fields.......

Answer 5

The light particles are moving fast and from a distance this may cause a flickering motion.

Answer 6

The ligts are probably flickering because you forgot to use an h.

Answer 7

the heat coming off of the earth is in waves as it travels up and the light is shifted as it passes through it their fore it looks like its flicker ling.

Answer 8

Objects and impurities in the air over great distances will make lights appear to ''twinkle''.

Answer 9

Its because the air in our atmosphere is "Poluted" with exhaust from cars, factories, stuff like that.

And the polution affects how things are seen from far away. so that flickering you see is the polution distorting what we can see from distances.

Answer 10

Its probably just your eyes playing tricks on you or that say someone turns on another light, the light you are looking at becomes weaker, causing it to flicker.

Answer 11

The light (photons) are being scattered by dust particles in the air, making the apparent brightness change. Or there's a tree in the way.