Light, in general, and color in particular are the mainstays behind the science and art of cinema: in front and behind the lens, bouncing off the micromirrors or LCD, the compression. Though very tangential to any practical application, this article speaks to some fundamentals of light that have been predicted for hundreds of years. And given "All 3D, All the Time", the control of light in this manner will not stay tangential for long.
Imagine taking a beam of light and tying it in knots like a piece of string. Hard to fathom? Well, a group of physicists from the UK have achieved this remarkable feat, and they say understanding how to control light in this way has important implications for laser technology used in wide a range of industries.
"In a light beam, the flow of light through space is similar to water flowing in a river," said Dr. Mark Dennis from the University of Bristol and lead author of a paper published in this week. "Although it often flows in a straight line – out of a torch, laser pointer, etc – light can also flow in whirls and eddies, forming lines in space called 'optical vortices.' Along these lines, or optical vortices, the intensity of the light is zero (black). The light all around us is filled with these dark lines, even though we can't see them."
Optical vortices can be created with holograms which direct the flow of light.
Read the entire article at: Physicists Tie Beam of Light Into Knots at the Universe Today site.
This article originated as a paid article with a lot more depth at: Isolated Optical Vortex Knots in nature magazine.
At DailyGalaxy.com we learn of superluminal speeds, anomalous dispersion, and
..., a brilliant young Spanish physicist, João Magueijo, has been pondering the heretical question: What if the speed of light—now accepted as one of the unchanging foundations of modern physics—were not constant?
Magueijo, a 41-year old native of Portugal, puts forth the heretical idea that in the very early days of the universe light traveled faster—an idea that if proven could dethrone Einstein and forever change our understanding of the universe. He is a pioneer of the varying speed of light (VSL) theory of cosmology -an alternative to the more mainstream theory of cosmic inflation- which proposes that the speed of light in the early universe was of 60 orders of magnitude faster than its present value.
Other interesting stories with great shots at today's UniverseToday.com
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