Laser light going through water

The photographs show laser light being reflected inside a stream of water demonstrating total internal reflection. I used a laser pointer as the light source, and water as the refractive medium. The light was pointed at a small straw joined to a pop bottle. When water with some oregano (to see the laser light) was added, the pictures were taken. The picture below shows the setup:

This setup follows the same principle as fiber optic cable, but in this case instead of using an outside cladding the air had the same effect. Because water has a lower index of refraction than air, the light is confined in the water by total internal reflection. In the picture below, the ray of light from the laser can be seen reflecting inside the water stream at an angle of reflection of 60 degrees, measured from the incident ray to the normal of the reflecting surface. This is well below the minimum critical angle of 48.6 calculated from the critical angle equation. A close-up of another picture showing the light bending is shown below:

When the water becomes turbulent before reaching the sink, the light becomes more scattered inside the stream. When the stream had a low velocity it was more turbulent and it started to break up causing a fire like hue around the end of the stream. The relatively slow shutter speed of the camera caused the fire like hue “flames” to merge in the picture below:

Coincidence?

Of course it is.