Satellite imagery has revolutionized remote sensing and our ability to observe the world around us. But peering past the surface of water has always been next to impossible. We might Keep reading
Tag: optics
Underwater Optical Illusions
On a hot day, it’s not unusual to catch a glimpse of a shimmering optical illusion over a hot road, but you probably wouldn’t expect to see the same thing 2,000 meters Keep reading
The Color of Droplets
In nature, color comes from many sources: like the pigmentation of skin and hair, the structural iridescence of a butterfly’s wings, or the refraction of a rainbow from water droplets. Keep reading
Supernumerary Bows
After the rain of Hurricane Florence came the rainbow, or rainbows, in this case. Photographer John Entwistle captured this image of a rainbow with several additional supernumerary bows. The inner Keep reading
Songs in Soap
There are many beautiful ways to visualize sound and music – Chris Stanford’s fantastic “Cymatics” music video comes to mind – but this is one I haven’t seen. This visualization Keep reading
Seeing the Invisible
Schlieren photography is a common experimental flow visualization technique, especially in supersonic flows (where it enables one to see shock waves). Here the Science Channel’s “Cool Stuff: How It Works” Keep reading
Seeing Shock Waves with Schlieren
Schlieren photography is actually a pretty commonly used system in high-speed experimental aerodynamics. A typical schlieren system will shine a collimated light source on the target (a wind tunnel test Keep reading