That seemed to have intriguing potential as an educational story.

But it felt odd. Briefly googling suggests optical polishing compound grains are almost all 1+ um.[1] But maybe that <1 um tail is key? This[2] shows larger grains, with a tail growing over hours. But lens roughness is already at ~1 nm without the tail, and the growing tail only slightly improves that. On the other hand, perhaps sub-um fragments from the hydrated damaged surface are being entrained by the lap pitch or wax or slurry? Don't know. But it seems a half-lambda grain-size story has difficulties.

Oh well. :) Thank you for this. I wish I could find an online community interested in crafting improved stories for teaching science and engineering. My in-person ones... covided. :/

[1] eg, for plastic lenses, https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.144.200/i1r.357.myftpuploa... from http://www.gkci.com/opthalmic/ready-to-use-plastic-lens-poli... . [2] page 7 of https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-16-14-1...