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The author of Skulls in the Stars is a 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. -
Category Archives: Optics
In depth: depth of focus and depth of field
Update: The original website with its digitally-altered ‘miniworld’ pics seems to have been taken down. I’ve constructed a few of my own ‘miniworld’ pics to give the reader an idea of what I’m talking about: From now on, I save … Continue reading
Posted in Optics
10 Comments
What a drag: Arago’s Experiment (1810)
Note: This post is my contribution to the first-ever edition of The Giant’s Shoulders, a new blog event compiling posts concerning classic science papers. I’ve been meaning to get back to my series of posts on relativity, but things have … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics, Physics, Relativity
20 Comments
Invisibility Physics: Schott’s radiationless orbits
Conventional wisdom, even to this day, dictates that accelerating charges necessarily give off electromagnetic radiation. This is seen, for instance, in large-scale particle accelerators (synchrotrons), such as the Tevatron at Fermilab and the soon-to-be-operational LHC at CERN: the charged particles … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics, Physics
4 Comments
Optics basics: Polarization
In a previous ‘basics’ post, I discussed the three major branches of optical science. My specialty, physical optics, involves the study of the wave properties of light. In particular, there are three major phenomena in physical optics: interference, diffraction, and … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Optics basics
13 Comments
“Aether Drag” and Moving Images: A different sort of “twin paradox”
Note: I’ve bumped this post in a probably futile attempt to get it aggregated by Research Blogging. It’s a little challenging to blog about contemporary optics research, as much of the work being done, though interesting, is of an extremely … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
15 Comments
Measuring neural activity using surface plasmons
In the May 1st issue of Optics Letters, a Korean research group has demonstrated another interesting application of surface plasmon resonances: the optical measurement of neural activity. Though I’m not sure how useful this technique will be in the long … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
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Classic Science Paper: Otto Wiener’s experiment (1890)
Update: In my haste to finish this “monster” post, I neglected to include an introduction to standing waves, an explanation which is crucial to understanding the experiment. That oversight has been corrected. A couple of weeks ago I issued a … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics, Physics
19 Comments
New theoretical results in the study of extraordinary optical transmission
Right after “challenging” my fellow science bloggers to find and write about an old scientific paper, I take a hypocritical turn and write about some recent results in the theory of extraordinary optical transmission! In a paper that came out … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
10 Comments
Invisibility Physics: Acceleration without radiation, part I
A couple of years ago, a number of physicists made international news (some descriptions here and here) by proposing that “cloaking devices” were theoretically possible to construct. Two papers appeared consecutively in Science Magazine in May 2006, one by U. … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics, Physics
17 Comments
Making anamorphic images, part 1: Piecewise images
In my recent post on the camera obscura, I discussed the optical illusion produced by so-called anamorphic images, i.e. images which only appear normal from a particular point of view. One can readily understand such images from the point of … Continue reading
Posted in Optics
8 Comments
