Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Stephen R. Wilk
Optics and Photonics News
Skip To Content Light Touch A 1919 expedition leveraged an eclipse to validate Einstein’s theory of general relativity, but that wasn’t the end of the controversy. An image of the May 1919 solar eclipse taken during the Eddington experiment. [ESO / Landessternwarte Heidelberg-K√∂nigstuhl / F.W. Dyson, A.S. Eddington and C. Davidson] On 29 May 1919, Arthur Stanley Eddington and Frank Watson Dyson made observations of the positions of stars around the sun during a total solar eclipse.
Optics and Photonics News
Skip To Content Light Touch The failure of three physics luminaries to explain parhelia illustrates the difficulty of scientific progress. Sun dogs observed in Hagsätra, Sweden. [steste / Wikimedia Commons; CC-BY-SA-3.0] There are frequent complaints regarding the lack of “negative results” in scientific publishing. It can be unpleasant to report a failure, or even a lack of success, but our body of knowledge advances with reports of things that did not work as well as those that did.
Optics & Photonics News - The Crystal Cubes of Henry Swan
Skip To Content Light Touch A look at the invention and rise and fall in popularity of the first autostereoscopic viewer. Autostereoscopic and “spectral” views of “Portrait of Sarah Anne Bennett,” Casket Portrait Co. Ltd., ca. 1865. [© Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Given by Margaret Bennett] The Great Exhibition of 1851 at the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park was a showcase of the latest science and technology.
Optics and Photonics News
Skip To Content Light Touch A look at the history of two-colored superimposed projected images. Reproduction frame from the first Technicolor film “The Gulf Between” (1917). [National Science and Media Museum Bradford / Kodak Film Samples Collection] Recently, someone asked me, “Why did early Technicolor need a special projector?” I was stumped.
Optics & Photonics News - H.G. Wells’ Fascination with Light
Skip To Content Light Touch The science-fiction and fantasy author’s expertise in microscopy and understanding of optics permeated much of his work. In a scene from the film “Things To Come,” based on a novel by H.G. Wells about a futuristic glass-based society and a rocket on the moon, two residents look at stars and planets on a large screen, circa 1936.
Optics & Photonics News - Accidental Stereograms
Skip To Content Light Touch Images showing parallax views—even if captured unintentionally—can be used to create 3D images. Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin in a scene from the 1925 silent film “The Phantom of the Opera,” which was filmed twice from different views. [Universal / Getty Archive Photos / Stringer] I have a deep and abiding interest in unusual topics in science, so perhaps it’s not surprising that I wrote my bachelor’s thesis at MIT, USA, on the physics of karate.
Optics and Photonics News
Skip To Content Light Touch A technique leverages interference to create vibrant, stable color pictures—but never hit the mainstream. The Matterhorn photographed in color by Gabriel Lippmann between 1891 and 1899. [Collection Photo Elysée / Fonds Lippmann] I first encountered a Lippmann photograph in the George Eastman Museum of Photography in Rochester, NY, USA. It was a tiny thing, illuminated by a bright light in the front.
Sally’s World Collapses: From Pride to Betrayal
Stephen Wilk · Follow 6 min read · -- How a 35-Year Career Ended with Injustice & Disability Discrimination Sally’s world felt like it was crumbling under the weight of betrayal — an image that captures her heartbreak (AI) Have you ever felt like your loyalty and dedication were discarded without a second thought? For Sally, 35 years of service meant nothing when she faced workplace disability discrimination. Sally’s 35 years of service felt like a lifetime of loyalty and dedication.
Sunglasses and Justice: An Unexpected Connection
Imagine a courtroom where judges wear sunglasses. Sounds bizarre? Stephen Wilk · Follow 4 min read · -- Should judges wear sunglasses during hearings? (This image was created using AI image creation) Well, in 12th century China, judges used smoky quartz lenses called “Ai Tai” to conceal their expressions during trials.
Optics and Photonics News
Polaroid cofounder George W. Wheelwright III demonstrates Polaroid polarizing lenses, circa 1930s. [Polaroid Corporation Records. Baker Library, Harvard Business School] The first polarized glasses appear to have been made in 1849 by Alexander Bryson of Edinburgh, Scotland. The prisms he used, invented just 20 years before, would have been a bit bulky but provided a relatively large aperture and worked for all visible wavelengths.
Optics & Photonics News - A Frozen Moment of Motion
Skip To Content Light Touch The story of how William Henry Fox Talbot’s markedly unremarkable photograph may have been the first demonstration of strobe photography. Re-creation of Harold Edgerton’s 1964 “stopped-time” image of a bullet through an apple. [estt / Getty Images] British scientist and inventor William Henry Fox Talbot is one of the world’s underappreciated polymaths.
Optics & Photonics News - Out of the Depths: The Submarine Telescope
In early November 1842, something new was added to Phineas Taylor Barnum’s American Museum in New York City. The museum had opened on New Year’s Day with an array of novel stuffed animals, dioramas, performers and scientific instruments. The new addition fit into this last category. It was a tank of water four and a half feet deep, with a peculiar brass construction inside. The device consisted of three tubes that went down almost the entire depth of the tank.
Optics & Photonics News - Iris Ornaments: The Beauty in Diffraction
A flower-shaped brooch produced by Jewelarama, with a diffracting disc at the flower’s center. [etsy.com/shop/MermaidSistersStudio] The first recorded effort to construct a diffraction grating was in 1785 by scientist David Rittenhouse of the University of Pennsylvania, USA. It was made in response to a query from New Jersey politician David Hopkinson, who wanted to know why his handkerchief looked very peculiar when he held it close to his eyes.
Shoulder ballast cleaning shows its worth
MUD spots, a common issue in ballasted track, are often associated with increased track geometry deterioration and sleeper pumping, which not only affects the geometry but can also result in shorter sleeper life and increased failures in the track structure. While full ballast replacement from undercutting is ideal, drainage improvement methods such as spot shoulder ballast cleaning (SBC) may slow track structure deterioration and extend the time before undercutting is required.
Optics and Photonics News
Skip To Content Light Touch Eddy’s kite-borne camera obscura allowed real-time imaging. Eddy’s photographic aerial camera on a kite, 1888, England. [Reproduction of 19th century engraving, H. Tschanz-Hofmann] Unless you are a true kite enthusiast, you’ve probably never heard of William Abner Eddy (1850–1909). But you’re probably familiar with the standard design of a kite—that bilaterally symmetrical quadrilateral with two crossbars covered in paper or plastic.
Optics and Photonics News
Skip To Content Light Touch Stephen R. Wilk tells the story of a historical optical tool with a peculiar name. 19th-century tourmaline tweezers from the UNIL-EPFL Collection of scientific instruments. [J.-F.
Optics & Photonics News - James Clerk Maxwell’s Vampire
[Illustration: Maxwell’s “The Vampyre” / Forest: Getty Images] James Clerk Maxwell, born in Edinburgh, UK, in 1831, is one of the icons of 19th-century science and made discoveries in multiple areas. He is, of course, famous for his eponymous equations describing electromagnetic fields and for his book on electromagnetism.
News Of Trending Business Topic Keyword Rank Checker
Beginners Guide To Keyword Rank Tracking Beginners Guide To Keyword Rank Tracking Beginners Guide Google Keyword Rank Tracking Book Website and WordPress Owners Are Discovering Keyword Rank Checker Has Been Trending In The Last 12 Months Website and WordPress owners are discovering that in the last 12 months keyword rank checker has been a trending topic.
Optics and Photonics News
Skip To Content Light Touch Examining an optical phenomenon that makes an observer look like an angel. The aureole effect surrounding the photographer’s shadow. [Willowpix/Getty Images] In summer 2019, I took a lake cruise with my wife. Having done our “Jack and Rose” moment from Titanic at the prow, we were near the bow as the ship pulled in to a stop, and I looked down at the water.
Optics & Photonics News - Secrets of the Bat Signal
Stephen R. Wilk Investigating the real-life origin of, and physics behind, the celebrated beacon from the comic series Batman. A 2019 art installation atop Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse building in Marseille, France, produced a working Bat Signal. [Artist: A. Israel / Photo: S. Aboudaram, We Are Content(s)] By the beginning of 1942, most of the elements of the Batman mythos had been established in Detective Comics and Batman.
Optics & Photonics News - Beyond “Fire in the Soul”
Light Touch Stephen R. Wilk The burning optical issues that underlie some modern art and architecture. Log in or Become a member to view the full text of this article. This article may be available for purchase via the search at Optica Publishing Group. Optica Members get the full text of Optics & Photonics News, plus a variety of other member benefits. Publish Date: 01 September 2021
The mermaid in the fishbowl: the rise of optical illusions and magical effects
The nineteenth century saw the publication of several books explaining how magical effects and spectral appearances could be performed using the science of optics. It started in 1831, when Sir David Brewster (famed for his discovery of Brewster polarization and inventing the kaleidoscope) published Letters on Natural Magic.
The Physics of Karate
In the late 1970s, a team of karate-loving physicists decided to perform an experiment inspired by their collective passion for martial arts. The group was made up of physicist Michael Feld, a brown belt who liked to illustrate the physics of karate via live demonstrations to his classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ronald McNair, future astronaut and fifth-degree black belt; and undergraduate Stephen Wilk.
Optics and Photonics News
Skip To Content Light Touch Exploring the novelty glasses’ diffraction-grating-based optical illusion. [Getty Images] X-Ray Spex, the cheap cardboard glasses that promised to show you the bones in your hand or the body of another person beneath their clothes, have been amazing people—and disappointing them—since 1906, when the first ones were patented in the United States. But they didn’t really burst upon the market until 1964.
EXCERPT: FROM LOVE’S JOURNEY TO HELL GATE
Step back inside the Wonderland of yore Some 100,000 people visited Wonderland on its opening day. Revere Beach would not see a crowd so large again until 1921. Reportedly, more people entered through the Beaver Street entrance (the one opening onto Revere Beach) than through the larger and more imposing Walnut Avenue entrance that led into the heart of the park. The first one to enter Wonderland— the first “Wonderlander,” as the papers called him— was Edwin G.
Ultraviolet, the Vampire Slayer
Stephen R. Wilk OPN’s “Light Touch” columnist offers a Halloween treat: a brief cultural history of UV light’s deadly effect on vampires. Wesley Snipes in a scene from the film “Blade,” 1998. [Photo by Amen Ra Films/Getty Image] That, biscuit boy, is a UV lamp,” threatens Wesley Snipes as the vampire-hunting hero in the 1998 movie “Blade.” “We’re gonna play a game of 20 questions.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Stephen R.
Contact Stephen R., search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack