Clipmarks | pokkets's 'light' clips

Self-luminous material glows for 12 years

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:59:45 GMT

clipped by: deusdiabolus

Litroenergy is a new type of material that emits light for 12 years without needing electricity or sun exposure. The self-luminous micro-particles are called Litrospheres and are said to be non-toxic and inexpensive. The light is said to be equivalent to a 20 watt incandescent bulb (lumens please?).

The litrospheres give off a continuous illumination, and can be designed to glow in any color. They can be injection molded or added to paint. The company that invented the material, MPK Co., predicts that first applications of Litroenergy will be in safety equipment such as safety tape and life rafts. Currently, the cost to light up a 8 ½ x 11 piece of plastic 1/8” thick is about .35 cents. Note: The press release says .35 cents but I think the figure is actually 35 cents.

More information can be found on this site.

Tags: light, luminesence, energy, conservation, technology

Quantum Waves: The nature of light

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:25:18 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Every particle has a frequency. There is an introduction, but more details on the page, to help understand how a wave can act like a particle

Clip Source: www.physics.uiowa.edu

Particles and Waves

We are all familiar with the motion of particles from our every-day experience with solid objects. Like balls on a billiards table, when two particles run into each other, they bounce apart. In contrast, when two waves meet, they pass right through each other!

As the animation shows, when two waves overlap they add up to form a larger wave

They can also cancel out to form nothing at all (cancellation), or partially cancel to make a more complex waveform. This is called interference.

When moving particles hit a gap in a barrier they will generally trickle out in a thin stream, but waves will spread out in every direction to form a circle. This is called dispersion.

If there are two gaps in the barrier, the two waves will interfere to create an interference pattern.

For all these reasons, at the beginning of the 20th century everybody thought particles and waves were totally separate phenomena. But that view had to change.

Photons: the Particle Nature of Light

Tags: light, wave, particle, photoelectric, quantum

Rainbows give computers more oomph

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:08:55 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: The plan is to use light to carry information rather than electrons. The light can be directed or controlled using materials smaller than the lights wavelength to assist in the processing, with different streams being carried by different wavelengths of light.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Scientists say they have slowed then stopped a squirt of light in what they describe as a key step towards the future of ultra-fast computing.

The technique, called 'trapped rainbow', would help optical data storage, with light replacing electrons to store information, according to their paper published today in the journal Nature.

Controlling light would also help engineers control major nodes where billions of optical data packets arrive at the same time.

By slowing some packets to let others through, rather like a traffic congestion scheme, the flow of data can be boosted.

The research, by Professor Ortwin Hess of the UK's University of Surrey and colleague Kosmas Tsakmakidis, is based on the so-called 'negative refractive index' of metamaterials.

Metamaterials are novel materials with metal components that are smaller than the wavelength of light, while the refractive index measures the slowing of light when it passes through an object.

Tags: light, computer, wavelength, metamaterials

Robot bugs mingle with roaches

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 03:14:34 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: An inside agent. Perhaps they can lead the cockroaches out into shoe range. It's all in the pheremones

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

Tiny robots programmed to act like roaches were able to blend into cockroach society, according to researchers studying the collective behavior of insects. Cockroaches tend to self-organize into leaderless groups, seeming to reach consensus on where to rest together.

For example, when provided two similar shelters, most of the group tended to gather under the same one.

Hoping to learn more about this behavior, researchers led by Jose Halloy at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, designed small robots programmed to act like a cockroach.

The robots didn't look like the insects and at first the roaches fled from them,

but after the scientists coated the robots with pheromones that made them smell like roaches the machines were accepted into the group, nesting together with the insects.

roaches generally prefer a darker place

Tags: robot, bug, cockroach, collective, behavior, light, dark

Hypnotic Light Graffiti

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:13:50 GMT

clipped by: anthonyo
clipper's remarks: Once again the creativity of man amazes me.

Clip Source: www.linkinn.com

Using LED glowsticks, flashlights, even fireworks, combined with time-lapse photography, light graffiti artists create a unique tagging that wraps around objects dimensionally, allowing them to tag in a way they'd never be able to with spraypaint. Very cool!

Tags: light, graffiti, modern, art, futute, amazing, hypnotic

'Village' for Astronomers set up in Georgia

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:46:51 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: With 9 observatories, and a 10 acre hilltop observation field where amateur astronomers who don't want to buy land in the village, can pitch a tent, and set up telescopes. The basic rule is No white lights.The idea is in response to the urban sprawl, where the spread of bright lights, can make stargazing Impossible.
In many cities, the city lights drown out the stars completely.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By DORIE TURNER

The most important rule at this remote vacation spot is simple: no white light. Even a sliver of the pupil-dilating rays coming from the window of a cabin at Deerlick Astronomy Village could ruin a neighbor's view of the Milky Way. The 96-acre village in rural Taliaferro County in eastern Georgia is designed for amateur stargazers looking for total darkness and wide-open spaces to build weekend homes.

he and his business partners figured the development would be popular

he said the demand for dark skies is soaring as suburban sprawl produces more light pollution.

But Hetlage said he was surprised just how quickly the two-acres plots sold

The grassy field lined with trees holds six homes and nine observatories, which look like tiny cabins with retractable roofs

Next to the houses is a 10-acre hilltop observation field where stargazers who don't want to buy property can pitch a tent and scan the sky for free. The field is the new home of the Atlanta Astronomy Club's telescope

Tags: astronomy, telescope, light, development, stargazers

Awesome Photography

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:07:18 GMT

clipped by: axelsenzon
clipper's remarks: good stuff here

Clip Source: www.widelec.org

Tags: photography, photoshop, light

LEDs to replace city street lights

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:49:12 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: The city near Detroit Ann Arbour, is replacing traditional bulbs with white LEDs,
which last an average of five times as long, and the energy saving will be the equivalent of taking 400 cars of the road.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By JEFF KAROUB

How many Ann Arbor city workers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Soon, none.

Instead, they will be installing light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, to replace about 1,400 street lights.

The eco-friendly city about 30 miles west of Detroit says it will be the nation's first to convert all downtown street lights to LED technology, which uses less than half the energy of traditional bulbs and could save the community $100,000 a year.

"LEDs pay for themselves in four years," said Mayor John Hieftje, who announced the city's plans this week as it joined Raleigh, N.C., and Toronto in the LED City initiative, an industry-government

group working to evaluate, deploy and promote LED lighting.

"They provide the same light, but they last 10 years. We had to replace the old ones every two years."

LEDs, small chips usually encased in a glass dome

usually gave off red or green light

a scientific breakthrough in the 1990s paved the way for LEDs that produce white light

Tags: led, light, emitting diode, ann arbour, street, power, energy

We have broken speed of light

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:35:29 GMT

clipped by: sodrio

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.

According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second.

However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.

The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.

The scientists were investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.

Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."

Tags: light, speed, science, technology

Sunlight via optical fiber

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 06:10:30 GMT

clipped by: sodrio

Clip Source: www.ornl.gov

Hybrid solar lighting (HSL) technology – a technology capable of collecting sunlight and distributing it, via optical fibers, into the interior of a building. This technology provides an exciting new means of reducing energy consumption while also delivering significant ancillary benefits associated with natural lighting in commercial buildings. Hybrid solar lighting has the potential to significantly reduce energy consumption for retailers while also maintaining, or exceeding, the lighting quality requirements of a retail environment

The sunlight collector consists of a large parabolic primary mirror and a segmented secondary mirror designed to focus the visible portion of sunlight into a bundle of plastic optical fibers.

In addition to the energy savings, hybrid lighting offers other value propositions such as the potential of improved lighting quality and worker productivity, visual connection with the outside world, and the future possibility of increased sales.

Tags: technology, sunlight, optical fibre, light

Turn a $5 Flashlight, into a $95 Light

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:04:25 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Seems so easy once you know how. The net is great for DIY improvements like this

Clip Source: www.hackerzen.com

[Video]

Tags: light, torch, battery, improvement, save, value

Scientists shine light,bend liquid

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 08:41:43 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Scientists have found a way to bend and direct liquid using only the force of light, according to a new study.

French and US physicists used a laser beam to produce a surprisingly long and steady jet of soapy liquid narrower than a human hair

When directed at a different angle, it pushed the liquid into a hump-like shape.

It is believed to be the first time a laser had been used to generate bulk flow in fluids.

University of Chicago professor, Wendy Zhang, was visiting colleagues at the University of Bordeaux.

Zhang was invited into a lab where scientist Jean-Pierre Delville had observed a strange and unexpected result after completing a previous experiment involving the behaviour of the same fluid under a less intense laser beam.

Delville turned up the laser power just to see what it could do.

While heat can set liquid in motion, Zhang and her colleagues discovered that

Instead, it was the gentle radiation pressure generated by photons, particles of light, which moved the liquid.

Tags: water, light, liquid, laser beam, physics

Wizardry at Harvard: Physicists Move Light

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 10:59:31 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Wizardry at Harvard: Physicists Move Light

It’s like three-card monte. Now you see it. Now you don’t. Then you see it — over there.

In a quantum mechanical sleight of hand, Harvard physicists have shown that they can not only bring a pulse of light, the fleetest of nature’s particles, to a complete halt, but also resuscitate the light at a different location and let it continue on its way.

That ability to catch, store, move and release light could be used in future computers to process information encoded in the light pulses.

“It’s been a wonderful problem to try to wrap your brain around,” said Lene Vestergaard Hau, a professor of physics at Harvard and senior author of a paper describing the experiment that appears today in the journal Nature. “There are so many doors that open up.”

In 1999, Dr. Hau headed a team of scientists that slowed light, which travels a brisk 186,282 miles a second when unimpeded, to a leisurely 38 miles an hour by shining it into an exotic, ultracooled cloud of sodium atoms. At temperatures a fraction of a degree above absolute zero, the atoms coalesce into a single quantum mechanical entity known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. Shining a laser on the cloud tunes its optical properties so that it becomes molasses when a second light pulse enters it.

The latest results add an additional twist: transporting the pulse to a second Bose-Einstein cloud and regenerating the light there. “That’s the sort of stuff we find really sexy in this business,” said Eric A. Cornell, a senior scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In the new Harvard experiment, when the initial pulse slammed into the first Bose-Einstein cloud, the collision caused 50,000 to 100,000 of the sodium atoms to start spinning, almost like small tops, and pushed this small clump forward at less than a mile an hour.

Tags: science, research, light, harvard, physics, breakthrough, computers