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#167577 04/16/07 11:46 AM
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Alb is a familiar root to me, as I read occasionaly morning prayer services at my chrch. we are required, to look suitably decorous, to wear a black, ankle-length cassock with a shorter alb (an all white garment, hanging to beteween waist and knees). So I am familiar with the "alb" concept on at keast a monthly basis. It is intended to suggest purity, though the connectkon is purely putative in my case.

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It is intended to suggest purity, though the connectkon is purely putative in my case. Then, spence, you'll fit right in, here!

So--can anyone tell me why I grew up hearing the albedo called a pith?

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Albedo? No, I have no idea why anyone would call the ratio of reflected to incident light the pith. (^_^)

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Latin had two words for 'white': albus, -a, -um, and candidus, -a, -um: the former 'matte, or dull, white' and the latter 'shiny white'. Albus is from the PIE root *albho- and is related to English elf and the place names Albany, Albania, and the Alps.


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albedo :2. The white, spongy inner lining of a citrus fruit rind.

pith: 1. tissue under rind of citrus fruits: the soft whitish fibrous tissue that lies under the outer rind of a citrus fruit.
........
pith and albedo are synonyms?

Albedo:
ratio of light reflected from a surface," from L., lit. "whiteness," from albus "white". Albedo is more commonly used in astronomy and meteorology and reflectance in physics.

whiteness:
In nature, the color white results when transparent fibers, particles, or droplets are in a transparent matrix of a substantially different reflective index. Examples include classic "white" substances such as sugar, foam, pure sand or snow, cotton, clouds, milk, etc. Crystal boundaries and imperfections can also make otherwise transparent materials white, as in the case of milky quartz or the microcrystalline structure of a seashells. This is also true for artificial paints and pigments, where the color white results when finely divided transparent material of a high refractive index is suspended in a contrasting binder. Typically paints contain calcium carbonate and/or synthetic rutile with no other pigments if a white color is desired.
rutile is a minaral composed primarily of titanium dioxiide, TiO2. Used for making wonderful, opaque titanium white paint.

All I know as a painter is that white is one of the most fascinating 'colours' to use. And that it hightly reacts to any neighbouring colour. Any movement in a white surface of whatever
substance changes the shades. There is no just one white colour , but countless shades of white. The optical illusion of a part of a white sheet of paper , enclosed within a different colour or shade, appearing whiter than the paper itself is well known , but it still is magic to me.

White is wonderful to work with.





Last edited by BranShea; 04/16/07 03:41 PM.
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Starting at and including http://www.onelook.com, you have to look in 4 dictionaries before you get to one that includes anything about fruit in the definition of albedo. Under the Science dictionary category, even the Botanical dictionary doesn't have it - well it's iVillage GardenWeb Glossary which makes you wonder why they have it at all...

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just a nit, but why are you "including http://www.onelook.com" in your list? OneLook doesn't have definitions in and of itself -- and if you are including the Quick definitions given therein, those are culled from indexed dictionaries which are in the public domain.

-joe (the didact) friday

edit: BTW, your link to http://www.onelook.com doesn't work due to the ","

Last edited by tsuwm; 04/16/07 05:38 PM.
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If you type albedo + citrus into any search engine's search window you get everything about citrus albedo.

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Odd that in a string apparently about today's word, no notice was taken of the quote that further shows Dostoyevsky to have been a raving lunatic.


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Originally Posted By: tsuwm
just a nit, but why are you "including http://www.onelook.com" in your list? OneLook doesn't have definitions in and of itself -- and if you are including the Quick definitions given therein, those are culled from indexed dictionaries which are in the public domain.

-joe (the didact) friday

edit: BTW, your link to http://www.onelook.com doesn't work due to the ","


I realize that the one that appears on onelook is from one of the others, but I can't remember which one. Technically, I suppose I should have said - the first three and whichever one onelook quotes from - but I stupidly assumed people would get that without having to be explicit. Sometimes I make the mistake of assuming people don't think I'm a total idiot. (^_^)

Also, I wasn't trying to link to onelook, in fact, I didn't even type the http:// part that ended up there automagically courtesy of the board software.

Last edited by Myridon; 04/16/07 09:13 PM.
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