But Laplace's theory implied that if the angle of incidence exceeded his modified critical angle, the reflection would be total even if the external medium was absorbent. Clearly this was wrong: in Eqs. (12) above, there is no threshold value of the angle θ i beyond which κ becomes infinite; so the penetration depth of the evanescent wave (1/ κ) is always non-zero, and the external medium, if it is at all lossy, will attenuate the reflection. As to why Malus apparently observed such an angle for opaque wax, we must infer that there was a certain angle beyond which the attenuation of the reflection was so small that ATR was visually indistinguishable from TIR.