Two teams (one at Berkeley and one at Imperial College London / Duke University) have developed "invisibility cloak" materials or metamaterials.
[The Berkeley] material is the first made in three dimensions to show a so-called "negative refractive index".
All materials found in nature have a positive refractive index, a measure of how much electromagnetic waves are bent when moving from one medium to another, but in these materials the light is bent the 'wrong' way as it passes through, which enables it to work, in theory at least, as a cloak.
"Natural materials do not respond to the magnetic field of light, but the metamaterial we created here does," said Dr Valentine. "It is the first bulk material that can be described as having optical magnetism, so both the electrical and magnetic fields in a light wave move backward in the material."
This post at ars technica actually describes metamaterials and some of the implications of the research released today. A little math, physics and Hollywood ... what's not to like about this story?
Madeleine L'Engle passed away last week (Sept 6). I wrote about her a few months ago. Some have compared her fictional series starting with A Wrinkle in Time to that of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series.
The picture above is of a Tesseract, mentioned in A Wrinkle in Time, and is essentially a four-dimensional cube. Four spatial dimensions, not three-spatial plus time. I can't quite wrap my head around it. Fascinating stuff though.
Tom posted a great Hubble photo demonstrating gravitational lensing. (To help translate the photo, imagine an invisible sphere slightly offset to the right from the big glowing star in the middle. Invisible sphere = gravity pulling on light = gravitational lensing.)
It all began back when we met in childhood. It was my introduction to Mr Dressup and Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock, later the Beachcombers and Danger Bay. Sunday mornings back then were filled with the sounds of Gilmour's Albums ... today, it's often the Vinyl Cafe. Saturday mornings I picked up the odd science tidbit on Quirks and Quarks and Saturday evenings I was wooed with jazz harmonies. Long drives during the weekday dusk, I met the world on As it happens.
And this has been my world. I am in love with the CBC. Whether TV or radio or now Radio3, a web exclusive ... the attraction has its hold. The voices and theme songs are home. I suppose I even trust these people I've never met.
And now, in the era of the short and snappy, blog infiltrated, information seeking society, CBC has provided a news segment that fits this mold. Georgie Porgie (George Stroumboulopoulos) is now hosting The Hour. It's a slightly irreverent yet extremely relevant look at the world. George asks the questions you come up with while sitting around over a late night cup of coffee with your friends. The segments are perfect office cooler conversation starters for the next day. The Hour doesn't just present the news to you, it engages you in the news. And that's what makes it so attractive. (Hey, George isn't hard on the eyes either.)
So I just got this comment on my Mr. God This Is Anna post from a guy who actually knew Fynn!
After so much searching, the answer simply came to me. Amazing really.
I have been captivated by this book (Mr. God this is Anna by Fynn) ever since I read it several years ago. And about since that time I've often wondered who the author actually is/was. Up until now, my attempts to find the person behind the pseudonym went in vain.
Recently I discovered that both Fynn and the individual who wrote the foreword to Mr God this is Anna have passed away. However, on a message board someone seems to have found one of the settings in the book...
... the EAST LONDON CEMETRY GRANGE ROAD LONDON E13. The nearest train station is PLAISTOW. To enter you go through the iron gates Fynn mentioned. I'd say these have obviously painted since Anna's time. When you walk down the main drive there are a number of marble angels to your right. However you will come to a small stone cottage here you turn right. On your left is a few more angels but one in particular is I think the one Fynn refered to. When you consider the base it stands on plus the height of the statue itself it would easily be 12 foot or more. It holds a small bunch of flowers in it's left hand and seems to be bending slightly to put the flowers on the grave. I looked but could not find any grave that I could positively identify as Anna's. Of course it is over 60 years since Anna's death and the cemetry has no doubt been extended, but I think when you see it you can get a pretty good idea where Fynn was. Outside the cemetry grounds is a long cement/concrete wall. It surrounds a large open area but most significantly there is a mainline railway track. This I think is the cemetry wall where Anna showed Fynn how shadows move faster than light.
Since I just happen to be going to London myself, perhaps I shall see if I can make it to this particular locale.
Like (in no particular order)
Eternal Sunshine
Knowing God (Packer)
The Pursuit of God (Tozer)
Joss Stone (Mind, Body & Soul; The Soul Sessions)
A fine cuppa joe
Both small groups I'm in
Friends
Boys
Not So Much:
The Forgotten
Being sick (this cold is awful)
My current job
Looking for a new job
Music on the radio
For those of you who thought my multiplication table and sum of the product table was cool (see extended entry) ... it looks like I may have discovered "arithmetic modulo 9". Google that if you like.
I'm glad someone else has discovered this already. Good old number theory.
PS - Apparently my "sums" table isn't exactly "modulo 9". Modulo 9 gets zeros instead of nines (i.e. 3-6-0-3-6-0 instead of my 3-6-9-3-5-9). This I have yet to wrap my head around.
To get the "sums" table, add the individual numbers from each product (answer in the multiplication table) until you get a single digit. For example, 4x8=32 so 3+2=5; or 7x8=56 so 5+6=11 and 1+1=2. It looks like this:
Horizontal/Vertical patterns
In the "1 row": increasing integers
In the "2 row": all even numbers, then all odd numbers (increasing)
In the "3 row": 3-6-9 and repeats
... "4 row": imagine 48, 37 ... (decreasing by 11)
... "5 row": imagine 51, 62 ... (increasing by 11)
... "6 row": 6-3-9 and repeats
... "7 row": all odd numbers, then all even numbers (increasing)
... "8 row": decreasing integers
Diagonal patterns as well
1 row: 1-4-9-7-7-9-4-1
2 row: 2-6-3-2-6-3-2
3 row: 3-8-6-6-8-3
4 row: 4-1-9-4-1-9
5 row: 5-3-3-5
etc
So my "check tire pressure" light has been on for some time now.
And, I did read the instruction manual ... and it said to press the 'reset' button. Which reset button, or where it might be located, eluded me.
So finally, procrastination set aside, I went online (where else?) and figured out that it was the reset button in the fuse panel. Well I'd already looked in the fuse panel, and there was no reset button there.
I bit more searching online told me that, lo and behold, there is more than one fuse panel in my brand new Eleanor. So with that new piece of advice, and a wee struggle to remove this new found fuse panel cover, I found the covetted reset button. And thus the light has been put out.
Hurray for me.
So today I was able to distract my preceptor with the observation below (check out the patterns in the "sums" table). He's big into numbers (pharmacokinetics to be exact). From there we got into 'chaos theory' and Bayesian kinetics. My brain is swarming with possibilities. It's been a while since my brain was this happy. I've linked to some pictures of fractals - graphical representations of chaos theory mathematics, below which is my observation about multiplication "sums".
Thanks to Crys, I know that Mark has a HomeStar Runner! t-shirt. Thanks to Rie, I found Jan's blog and noticed that she is also aware of the HomeStar Runner! website. Who knew so many people are aware of this unique phenomenon? It's almost as good as Mystery Science Theater 3000 that Mark introduced me and the gal's from the former Doll House to a long time ago.
