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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. -
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Category Archives: Optics
Taylor sees the (feeble) light (1909)
Most people, even non-scientists, are aware these days of the notion that light acts sometimes like a wave, sometimes like a particle, depending on the circumstances. This wave-particle duality is a fundamental aspect of nature, applying to all elementary particles, … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics, Physics
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RIP Emil Wolf, 1922-2018
On Saturday morning, my PhD advisor and friend Professor Emil Wolf passed away at the age of 95. He was a singularly gifted scientist as well as an extraordinarily kind and wise person. It is fair to say that I … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Personal
7 Comments
Optics in the solar eclipse!
Just a very short note: I’m on the road, aiming to be in the path of totality of the solar eclipse hitting tomorrow. One of the things I’m going to be looking at, in addition to the ghostly hidden sun, … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
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Dr. SkySkull in Amsterdam: Optics in the Rijksmuseum
The lower level of the Rijksmuseum, an area relatively few time-strapped visitors manage to visit, is reserved for more practical forms of art: musical instruments, ceramics, ship figureheads, weapons, and the like. I explored this whole area on my recent … Continue reading
Posted in Entertainment, History of science, Optics, Travel
2 Comments
What is quantum entanglement? Part 5: Making it happen
This is part 5 in a lengthy series of posts attempting to explain the idea of quantum entanglement to a non-physics audience. Part 1 can be read here, Part 2 can be read here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here. So … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
3 Comments
Optics basics: reflection
It’s been some 5 years since I wrote my last “Optics basics” post! The goal of that series of posts was to introduce some of the most fundamental concepts in optics in a non-technical way, in part so I wouldn’t … Continue reading
Posted in Optics basics
4 Comments
Pepper’s last optical illusion: metempsychosis
A month ago, I shared the lengthy, odd and sometimes dramatic history of the illusion commonly known as “Pepper’s ghost,” which I believe is more properly called the “Pepper-Dircks ghost.” In researching this post, I uncovered a wealth of fascinating … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics
1 Comment
19th century optics FAILs
My recent post on the Pepper-Dircks ghost didn’t include even close to all of the interesting tidbits it could have! There are so many things to learn from the story of the ghost, including some lessons about optics. For example: … Continue reading
Posted in ... the Hell?, History of science, Optics
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Michael Faraday meets “The Ghost”
My most recent blog post, concerning the history of the Pepper-Dircks Ghost, was extremely long but didn’t even include all the fascinating aspects of its history. For instance: the ghost was such an incredibly effective illusion that it even drew … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics, Physics
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Dircks and Pepper: A Tale of Two Ghosts
It is often told that in the 1860s, John Henry Pepper used science and technology to invent a ghost. Or did he? This is the surprisingly tricky question that we will try to answer in this lengthy post. It is a … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics
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