All posts filed under: optics

Papers (4): Our paper on fluid-surface interactions is out!

September 4, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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articles / nature / optics / Papers / physics

Our work on liquid-surface interactions just got published in Communications Physics. Great work by Daniel and the team at IMRE! Congratulations to all! You can read the paper here. Comments welcome. AbstractRecently, there has been much progress in the design and application of oil-repellent superoleophobic surfaces. Polyzwitterionic brush surfaces are of particular interest, because of their ability to repel oil under water, even in the absence of micro-/nanostructures. The origin of this underwater superoleophobicity is […]

Patents and the invention of the telescope

August 25, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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history / knowledge / optics

There is an ongoing discussion whether patents encourage or hinder innovation. Patents grant a temporary monopoly as an incentive for the inventor to commercialize the inventions and come up with follow-up innovations. However, many companies file patent applications to block competition even though the companies owning the patent do not intend to commercialize the invention. It is tempting to speculate what would have happened to many technologies were they patented or not. Although we can’t […]

Curiopticals (1)

August 2, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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optics

Two great optical illusions demonstrating how, due to the limitation of our vision system, our brain ‘averages’ the information it receives and fills in for us the missing pieces. This picture of brown balls by David Novick! The Munker-White illusion. “A three-colour confetti illusion with spheres, which appear to be yellowish, reddish, and purpleish but in fact have exactly the same light-brown base colour (RGB 255,188,144). Shrinking the image increases the effect.” David Novick This […]

Scattering

July 31, 2019
by Nikodem Tomczak
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history / optics

(…) for behold wheneverThe sun’s light and the rays, let in, pour downAcross dark halls of houses: thou wilt seeThe many mites in many a manner mixedAmid a void in the very light of the rays,And battling on, as in eternal strife,And in battalions contending without halt,In meetings, partings, harried up and down. Titus Lucretius Carus, On the Nature of Things, translated by William Ellery Leonard.