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The author of Skulls in the Stars is an associate professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. -
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Category Archives: Optics
All about rainbows, double rainbows, circular rainbows!
Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an … Continue reading
Posted in Optics
8 Comments
Physics demonstrations: cloaking device?
I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog talking about the optics of invisibility, both hypothetical and actual. Though a number of forms of invisibility have been considered in both science and fiction for over a hundred years, the … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics, Physics demos
5 Comments
Physics demonstrations: invisibility on the cheap!
I spend a lot of time talking about invisibility on this blog, and it really has become a fascinating and vibrant area of optics, with lots of remarkable results. However, most of those results are theoretical, and the experimental results … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics, Physics demos
2 Comments
How to become invisible by “hiding under the carpet”
Since the first theoretical cloaking papers in 2006, the topic of optical invisibility has just gotten stranger and stranger. There have been proposals of optical wormholes, perfect optical illusions, space-time cloaks, and more. Perhaps even more surprising, however, is the … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics
4 Comments
Phantasmagoria: How Étienne-Gaspard Robert terrified Paris for science
Scientists are so often imagined to be bland and unimaginative, slaving away at research and taking away the joy of nature. I’m no longer so irritated by this perception as I used to be, but rather surprised by it: going … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Horror, Optics
5 Comments
Optical wormholes: punching virtual tunnels in space via metamaterials!
Though the introduction of optical invisibility cloaks in 2006 caused a huge sensation around the world in both the media and the general public, arguably even more significant to the optical science community is the technique used to design cloaks. … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics
2 Comments
Illusion optics: the physics of making things look like other things!
The idea of optical cloaking, or more generally the concept of invisibility, has gone from science fiction trope to serious topic of physics research to subfield of optical science in its own right in a remarkably short period of time. … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics
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Light “tying itself in knots,” at Aeon Magazine
Those who are familiar with my blog know that one of my fields of specialty is so-called “singular optics,” the study of the behavior of light in regions where the light intensity is zero and the phase is singular. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Science news
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Invention of the “perfect” invisibility cloak?
In 2006, a number of researchers made international headlines with the announcement that they had laid the theoretical foundations for the construction of an “invisibility cloak,” a device that has been a staple of horror, fantasy and science fiction for … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics
5 Comments
“Hairy balls” in optics?
The title of this post certainly got your attention, didn’t it? Don’t worry — the topic of the post is not quite as bad as it sounds! The “hairy ball” theorem is in fact a mathematical theorem that states, in … Continue reading
