translucent medium

Translucent medium

A medium which transmits rays of light so diffused that objects cannot be seen distinctly; that is, the medium is only partially transparent. Familiar examples are various forms of glass which admit considerable light but impede vision. Inasmuch as the term translucent seems to imply seeing, usage of the term is ordinarily limited to the visible region of the spectrum.

McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopedia of Physics. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

translucent medium

[tran′slüs·əns ′mēd·ē·əm]
(optics)
A medium which transmits rays of light so diffused that objects cannot be seen distinctly; examples are various forms of glass which admit considerable light but impede vision.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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He writes, in a somewhat syllogistic fragment, that "Every living thing that is beautiful has semblance list scheinhaft]" and "Every artistic thing that is beautiful has semblance [Schein]," inferring, invalidly, that artistic things must therefore be alive "in one sense or other." The editors, doubtless after protracted agonizing, have translated Schein as "semblance," which obscures the metaphor of irradiation - of light appearing through a translucent medium - that I feel was what Benjamin meant to convey.
Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 1: 1913-1926

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