Originally Posted by n0nsensical

Ahh, is this a property of all matter or only certain types? If the latter, what is different about it to cause this kind of behavior? Is this the entire reason for varying permittivity and permeability of different media? Is there any sort of delay associated with bouncing off an atom or is it simply because of the additional distance? This is where my knowledge starts to get really hazy, I am horrible at microelectronics and microphysics, why I ended up as a computer scientist than a EE, EE is practically turning into material physics and quantum mechanics these days as circuits shrink and shrink.