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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
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
Posted in Optics, Personal
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How fast can we communicate with light and radio waves?
I’m pretty forgiving about reading mildly inaccurate physics stuff, especially when it’s in science fiction stories, but every once in a while I read a real zinger that nearly causes me physical pain. Recently I was reading an article about … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
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New collaborative paper on an optical Hilbert’s Hotel!
I need to talk about more of my own research on this blog, and a new collaborative paper that just came out is a good opportunity! This paper presents collaborative work I did with researchers in India at the Physical … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics, Optics
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What the heck is the “speed of light?” Part 2
In Part 1 of What the heck is the “speed of light?”, we noted how light in matter can move much slower than the vacuum speed of light c, or even appear to move much faster than c, under the … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
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What the heck is the “speed of light?” Part 1
Most of us have heard a statement similar to the one that follows: “The speed of light is constant.” That particular phrasing of the statement comes from none other than the American Museum of Natural History’s Einstein exhibit, so I … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
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Optics basics: thin films
Color can have surprising origins in nature. Most of the time, the color of an object is dictated by the light it absorbs: for example, if you see an object that is blue, that means that it reflects all the … Continue reading
Posted in Optics basics
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So, what is “structured light?”
The fields of optical science and engineering have undergone dramatic changes over the past twenty years. Through most of its history, stretching back for hundreds of years, optics researchers have been asking the question, “what can light do?” Revolutionary discoveries … Continue reading
Posted in Optics
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Nonradiating orbital motions!
You know what I haven’t talked about much lately? My own research! Well, today is a great day for it, because a paper I wrote with my student Ray Abney just came out in Physical Review A, titled “Nonradiating orbital … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics, Personal
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Skulls in the Stars 