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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
Electromagnetic Optics available for pre-order!
Let me just share a short note here that my Electromagnetic Optics textbook is now available for pre-order, to be published in March 2025! The link to the IoP Publishing site is here. The official description of the book: Light … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Personal
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A TikTok video on anholonomy, Foucault’s pendulum, and falling cats!
I’ve been spending more time making videos lately on TikTok, and I saw a video from a young woman inadvertently demonstrating the concept of anholonomy, which is related to everything from Foucault’s pendulum to light polarization to falling cats! I … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
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1928: E.H. Synge invents near-field microscopy
It is often the case in science that the human imagination can outpace our technical abilities, and the result is that many remarkable inventions are conceived and their basic principles laid out long before anyone has the capability to construct … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics
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The discovery of ultraviolet light
As some of you may know, I’ve been working on a textbook on Electromagnetic Optics for a year now, and am near the end of the process. In finishing it, I wrote an introductory chapter that reviews the whole electromagnetic … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics
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Memories of Emil Wolf
2024 marks the 65th anniversary of a significant milestone in optics: the publication of Principles of Optics by Max Born and Emil Wolf, a comprehensive book on physical optics that has been cited some 78,000 times in the scientific literature … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics, Personal
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Robert Williams Wood and the mystery of anomalous dispersion (1901)
I’ve been hard at work in recent months on a new textbook on electromagnetic waves, and that has led me to dig deep into understanding a number of subjects, and their history, that I have only really casually considered in … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics, Physics
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From the archives: Phantasmagoria: How Étienne-Gaspard Robert terrified Paris for science
This is another classic post that I will probably turn into a TikTok video in the future, but I am very proud of the writing I did here!
Posted in History of science, Optics
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What is a zero refractive index material?
I’m currently writing a textbook on Electromagnetic Waves for my graduate optics students. I was reading up on zero refractive index materials for a chapter section and thought it would be fun to write a popularized account of their fascinating … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
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The Tenebroscope: showing that light is invisible (1863)
At first glance, the title of this post probably appears quite paradoxical. After all, the very definition of an object being visible is seeing light coming off of the object! At second glance, you might think the title is referring … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics
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“Deterministic vortices evolving from partially coherent fields” in Optica!
Some exciting personal and optics news: I just had a paper published in the prestigious journal Optica with my student Wenrui Miao and my colleague Yongtao Zhang on “Deterministic vortices evolving from partially coherent fields.” The paper is open access, … Continue reading
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Skulls in the Stars 