Science Art: Azimuth and Altitude Instrument, c. 1876
This is an illustration from the Great Exhibition, 1876, or The great Centennial exhibition critically described and illustrated, by Phillip T. Sandhurst, which you can […]
optics
Science Art: Detail from Tinsley Laboratories ad, 1966.
That’s a closeup of the Surveyor-1 satellite printed above an image of the Gemini orbital capsule, with the words “WE GAVE” (image of Surveyor-1) “a […]
A new color, named “olo.”
BBC reports on an odd optical experiment that resulted in human eyes seeing an entirely new color, a kind of super-saturated aqua they’ve dubbed “olo”: […]
Science Art: Fluorescence and birefringence of 445 nm blue laser in calcite crystal, Jan Pavelka, 2011.
Calcite refracts light in a linear way – it’s why (as previous songs have discussed) it may have been used as a navigational tool by […]
Science Art: Diagram illustrating the inherent conspicuousness of an eye-spot…, Cott, 1942.
An illustration showing how noticeable an eye actually is, from the text The Vertebrate Eye and Its Adaptive Radiation, which looks at eyes, eyes everywhere, […]
Science Art: Altitude and azimuth instrument, 1876.
How high? This device will tell you. It’s from The great Centennial exhibition critically described and illustrated, by Phillip T. Sandhurst, which you can read […]
Science Art: If Bodies fill the Same Angle, their Size is Proportional to their Distance, 1898
This is an oddly domestic example of an astronomical principle … or maybe it only seems domestic to me because I keep a bicycle in […]
Magic mirror brings the Buddha’s enlightenment… when the light hits it just right.
CNN reports on an unexpected discovery in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s East Asian collection, where an unremarkable-looking bronze mirror was just revealed to reflect a […]
Science Art: Power spectrum of Siemens star with 1024 line pairs per image height, by Bautsch, 2012.
This is a Siemens star, a pattern used to calibrate optical equipment – to see how well the lens (or raster, or driver, or whatever) […]
Camera lens based on a trilobite’s eye keeps objects in focus near and far.
Science News looks at the world through the eyes of Dalmanitina socialis, a creature extinct for 400 million years who could focus on objects as […]
A brittle star’s whole body is an eye.
Scientific American looks at how these starfish relatives don’t need eyes to see: And yet now there appears to be something far stranger about the […]
Science Art: Marconi Photo-Cell for Transmitter from Television Optics, 1938.
Embryonic television. I like how this device has an almost Lovecraftian vibe, as if sending moving pictures was a thing that involved mystical processes. What’s […]
A bit more evidence that Viking sunstones really worked.
PhysOrg returns to the sunstone – remember the sunstone? the calcite crystal that may have helped the Vikings plot courses at sea? that inspired this […]
Science Art: Red laser through irregular glass mj1, by Mariojan Photo, 2007
Click to embiggen vastly A red laser pointer. A chunk of “bad” glass. A blank wall. And here, a remarkable thing. From the Wikimedia Commons […]
Telescopic contact lenses
They’re not exactly pretty yet, but New Scientist has the skinny on a real James Bond-style super-gadget, telescopic contact lenses: Developed by a team led […]