Optics & Light — Posts

52 posts on "Optics & Light" by Shlomo Strauss — bilingual writing on technology, science, and business.

• The Century-Old Space Mirror Plan Threatening the Night Sky — A new startup plans to launch space mirrors to provide sunlight at night, sparking severe concerns over light pollution and ecological disruption.
• Scientists replicate butterfly structures for fade-proof colors — By mimicking the crystalline structures of butterfly wings, scientists have developed a fast, non-toxic method to produce colors that never fade.
• The physics and extreme weather systems of mega-fires — Mega-fires generate intense heat that triggers pyrolysis and creates independent weather systems capable of producing lightning and 200 km/h winds.
• Power Grid Anomalies Expose Transnational Crypto Laundering — A Chinese crime syndicate's hidden Bitcoin mining and money-laundering operation was dismantled after algorithms detected power grid anomalies.
• The impending collapse of GoPro and its technological legacy — Facing financial struggles and fierce competition, GoPro nears the end of its path while leaving a lasting legacy in digital image stabilization.
• Earthquake Lights, Mie Scattering and Venezuela's Red Sky — While dust caused Venezuela's red skies via Mie scattering, true earthquake lights stem from tectonic pressure and may help predict future tremors.
• Corning's evolution from Edison's lightbulb to AI optical fibers — Corning has sustained 175 years of relevance by adapting its glass technology for everything from Edison's lightbulbs to modern AI data centers.
• How NASA's 1989 VIEW Project Laid the Foundation for Modern VR — Although NASA's 1989 VIEW project failed its space goals, its optical and tracking innovations laid the groundwork for Nintendo, Oculus, and modern VR.
• The Geopolitical Battle Over LED Manufacturing — The transition to gallium nitride in LED manufacturing has sparked a geopolitical struggle due to its critical military and communication applications.
• Amazon Challenges Starlink in the Race for In-Flight Wi-Fi — Amazon's new satellite internet solution for airplanes promises double the speed of Starlink and a significantly faster installation time.
• The engineering behind the B-2 bomber's stealth and endurance — From its radar-absorbing iron-powder coating to a laser that detects contrail formation, this post breaks down the stealth and aerodynamic engineering of…
• Fiber-optic cables and AI are finding hidden water leaks underground — A British startup repurposed existing fiber-optic infrastructure and AI models to detect water pipe leaks, saving over 700 million liters of water…
• Why old HDD drives are suddenly back in high demand — EU AI data-retention rules, rising SSD costs, and new laser and microwave writing technologies are driving an unexpected HDD revival with capacities up to
• A QR code smaller than a bacterium just broke a world record — Researchers from TU Wien and startup Cerabyte etched a 1.98 sq-micron QR code onto ceramic, demonstrating a storage method that could hold 2TB per A4…
• Iron Beam: the engineering behind Israel's high-power laser defense — From ytterbium fiber bundles to real-time atmospheric correction, a clear-eyed look at how Iron Beam combines dozens of lasers into a single 100-kilowatt…
• Tower Semiconductor and Nvidia bet on silicon photonics for AI — A new deal between Tower Semiconductor and Nvidia will bring silicon-nitride optical interconnects inside AI servers, promising up to 70% energy savings…
• The hidden damage trail of geomagnetic storms — Beyond the aurora's beauty, geomagnetic storms accelerate pipeline corrosion, collapsed Quebec's power grid in 1989, and destroyed 38 Starlink satellites…
• The glass fabric holding the chip industry together — and Intel's — Why boron-free T-Glass became a critical bottleneck for AI chip production, and how Intel is developing a pure glass substrate as a future alternative.
• Molten salt and the eutectic point powering next-generation solar — A Chinese concentrating solar plant using 30,000 heliostats and a eutectic molten-salt mixture can store thermal energy for up to six hours, outperforming
• Germanium: the element inside your phone, missiles, and quantum — A look at germanium's unique optical and electronic properties, its role in 5G, thermal imaging, and missiles, and the chalcogenide glass competing to…
• The $400 million machine at the heart of modern chip manufacturing — A look at how ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography machine works, and the startup betting X-rays can do the job better and cheaper.
• Lab-grown diamonds are becoming a critical component in chips and — Lab-grown diamonds, which conduct heat five times better than copper, may soon enable faster chips and room-temperature quantum computing qubits.
• Why skin darkens in the sun, and what an orange shark has to do with — A clear look at how melanin and carotenoids protect living cells from UV radiation, illustrated by a rare shark observed off Costa Rica with both albinism
• Bioluminescence: from glowing cave larvae to self-lit street trees — The luciferase-luciferin reaction behind New Zealand's glowing cave worms also points toward engineered luminescent trees as a future alternative to…
• Adobe's new iPhone camera app stacks 32 frames for cleaner shots — Adobe's free Project Indigo app captures 32 bracketed exposures and merges them into a single clean image, offering manual controls and direct Lightroom…
• Why ice crystals in cirrus clouds create rings of light around the — A clear explanation of how hexagonal ice crystals in cirrus clouds refract sunlight at precise angles to produce single or double halos around the sun.
• Google's patent puts 3D face recognition directly under the display — A newly filed Google patent describes an under-display 3D face recognition system that could rival Apple's Face ID while eliminating the need for a notch…
• How levitation works — and why it matters for climate and quantum — From Meissner-effect superconductors to optical tweezers and the Casimir force, this piece explains how levitation works and what room-temperature…
• Cherenkov radiation: when particles outrun light in water — A clear explanation of why nuclear reactor cores glow blue, and how the same physics underlies ship wakes and sonic booms.
• The neutrino that nearly broke the speed of light barrier — From a $100-million underground detector in Japan to a loose cable that sent physics into a panic, this piece traces the neutrino's strangest moments.
• Why a pickle glows yellow when electric current passes through it — Sodium ions in a pickle emit light at 589 nm when excited by electric current — the same principle behind old sodium street lamps.
• Daylight pipes: bringing natural sunlight deep inside buildings — Light-pipe systems channel natural sunlight into a building's interior zones, combining energy savings, improved wellbeing, and the ability to grow plants
• Active optical HDMI cables: when the premium price makes sense — Unlike standard copper HDMI cables, active optical variants convert signals to light internally, solving interference and distance problems in demanding…
• Yousuf Karsh and the art of black-and-white portraiture — An exploration of Yousuf Karsh's portrait philosophy — using deliberate lighting and a fleeting unguarded moment to reveal each subject's inner secret.
• Neodymium: the element behind color-shifting glass and electric — The electron structure of neodymium causes glass to shift color under different light sources — and the same element puts over a kilogram of rare-earth…
• The real advantage is efficiency, not more resources — Using the LED vs. incandescent bulb as a lens, this post argues that smarter allocation of limited time and money beats simply acquiring more of either.
• The physics behind fireworks colors — From metal salt combustion to electron energy transitions, this post explains how fireworks get their colors, shapes, and precise timing.
• How laser links between satellites cut Starlink's latency — Starlink's shift to inter-satellite laser links shortens data paths and slashes latency — demonstrated live when astronaut Sarah Gillis played a Star Wars
• A camera from 1898 and the optical principle behind every lens since — A 126-year-old black-and-white camera shows how every device, from film to iPhone, is fundamentally a box that captures light through an aperture.
• A brain implant built from the patient's own neurons aims to outdo — Science, founded by Neuralink's former president, is developing brain implants grown from a patient's own stem cells, potentially reducing rejection risk…
• Why titanium screws change color: the physics of electrochemical — A titanium dioxide layer formed by electrochemical redox produces a spectrum of colors through light interference, not changes in chemical composition.
• What a video player looked like in 1930 — Decades before digital pixels, early video devices already relied on the same core principle: cycling still images fast enough to fool the human eye into…
• Camera sensor size explained: why it matters and how smartphones — A concise explainer on how sensor size affects image quality, low-light performance, and bokeh — and why software processing lets smartphones punch above…
• Vantablack: the material that absorbs 99.965% of visible light — A concise look at how carbon nanotubes make Vantablack so extraordinarily dark, its uses in telescopes and space, and the art-world controversy it sparked.
• Neuralink's brain implant for the blind gets FDA approval for human — Neuralink's Blindsight device pairs cameras with a brain implant targeting the visual cortex, potentially giving sight even to those blind from birth.
• Chinese farmers are using precision lasers to eliminate weeds without — Precision laser systems now let Chinese farmers detect and destroy weeds on the spot, offering a cheaper and less toxic alternative to chemical herbicides.
• What happens when magnesium meets microwave radiation — A piece of magnesium in a quartz cup turns into glowing plasma inside a microwave — here is the physics behind the blue sparks.
• Why green screens are green: the optics and sensor science behind — Camera sensors dedicate half their pixels to green, and the color contrasts well with human skin tones — two reasons that made green the default for video
• RGB vs. aRGB: the real difference behind PC lighting — A clear breakdown of how standard RGB and addressable aRGB lighting work, and why mixing components from different manufacturers can make PC builds…
• Why Apple stacked two OLED panels in the new iPad — Apple's Tandem OLED bonds two panels together to reach 1,000 nits full-screen brightness, three to five times that of a typical computer display.
• Iran, Venezuela, and your business share one dangerous flaw — Whether it's rocket arsenals, oil revenues, or a single professional skill, over-reliance on one income source creates dangerous vulnerability — a lesson…
• LCD vs OLED: how your screen actually works — A concise breakdown of how LCD and OLED screens work, and why the difference matters the next time you buy a device.