-
+18 +1
So Much for Hoarding Incandescent Light Bulbs
Have you laid in a nice stockpile of incandescent light bulbs, now that they're forbidden? How's that going? Around sundown one day last week, I stepped on the foot-switch for the nearest floor lamp. The bulb buzzed and lit up a dull pink. Off and on again: dead. Another 100-watt incandescent in the trash.
-
+22 +1
The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and wave
Light behaves both as a particle and as a wave. Since the days of Einstein, scientists have been trying to directly observe both of these aspects of light at the same time. Now, scientists at EPFL have succeeded in capturing the first-ever snapshot of this dual behavior.
-
+17 +1
What is a ray of light made of?
It's all around us and allows us to see the world. But most of us would struggle to explain what light actually is
-
+16 +1
Humans cling to their primal fear of the dark
Your chances of being attacked, robbed, or struck by a car are no worse on a dimly lit street. And yet, like cavemen huddled around a campfire, humans are still comforted by light. By Eric Betz.
-
+17 +1
Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography using a Modulo Camera
This paper presents a novel framework to extend the dynamic range of images called Unbounded High Dynamic Range (UHDR) photography with a modulo camera. A modulo camera could theoretically take unbounded radiance levels by keeping only the least significant bits. We show that with limited bit depth, very high radiance levels can be recovered from a single modulus image with our newly proposed unwrapping algorithm for natural images.
-
+25 +1
Electric Baths of Yesteryear
It does sometimes seem like our early 20th century ancestors had a knack for coming up with particularly extravagant new ways to torture themselves. An electric bath?
-
+9 +1
Device can theoretically trap a light ‘bit’ for an infinite amount of time
Researchers have designed a nanoscale device that, under ideal conditions, can confine a “bit” of light (that is, light with a single precise energy value) for an infinite amount of time.
-
+21 +1
Light: Particle or Wave?
Classically, light can be thought of in two ways: either as a particle or a wave. But what is it really? Well, the ‘observer effect’ makes that question kind of difficult to answer. So before we get too far into it, what is the observer effect?
-
+2 +1
Heinz Mack. The Visible Reminder of Invisible Light
Heinz Mack. The visible reminder of Invisible Light
-
+9 +1
People can sense single photons
Experiment suggests that humans are capable of perceiving even the feeblest flash of light. By Davide Castelvecchi.
-
+10 +1
Evolution favors the bioluminescent
You glow, you win—the power to emit light has evolved a whopping 27 times. By Annalee Newitz. (June 15, 2016)
-
+2 +1
Scientists discover light could exist in a previously unknown form
New research suggests that it is possible to create a new form of light by binding light to a single electron, combining the properties of both.
-
+6 +1
Scientists stop light in a cloud of atoms
Australian scientists have stopped light in a cloud of very cold atoms, a development that provides a essential building block for quantum computing. By Dani Cooper. (Sept. 26, 2016)
-
+34 +1
Plants ‘see’ underground by channelling light to their roots
Roots of many plants have light receptors, and now we may have discovered why. They seem to channel light underground using stems as fibre-optic cables. By Alice Klein.
-
+23 +1
In the Deep, Clues to How Life Makes Light
Bioluminescent organisms have evolved dozens of times over the course of life’s history. Recent studies are narrowing in on the complicated biochemistry needed to illuminate the dark. By Steph Yin.
-
+4 +1
Physicists detect exotic looped trajectories of light in three-slit experiment
Physicists have performed a variation of the famous 200-year-old double-slit experiment that, for the first time, involves “exotic looped trajectories” of photons.
-
+5 +1
Watch the Walls Shimmer at Iran’s Emerald Mosque
Shah Cheragh is one dazzling funerary monument.
-
+24 +1
New material helps record data with light
Russian physicists with their colleagues from Europe have learned to generate quasiparticles—excitons, which were fully controllable and able to record information at room temperature. These particles act as a transitional form between photons and electrons, so the researchers believe they can be used to create compact optoelectronic devices for rapid recording and processing of optical signals.
-
+43 +1
World’s Blackest Material Now Comes in a Spray Can
Vantablack is now available in a spray-on form that blocks 99.8 percent of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light — enough to make an otherwise detailed 3D object appear as a flat black void. By Kacey Deamer. (Apr. 5, 2017)
-
+19 +1
Photonic Hypercrystals Are Now a Reality and Light Will Never Be the Same
Recently theorized and already realized, photonic hypercrystals will further enable technologeis from Li-Fi to Solar Cells. By Dexter Johnson.
Submit a link
Start a discussion