Cool Photo #4: Lena and 204,500 Other Cool Images May 8, 2012
Posted by photonicpat in imaging.Tags: cool stuff, imaging, optics and pop culture, photography, photos
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OSA, my primary freelance customer these days, has debuted the Optics ImageBank, a handy-dandy place to look up graphs, photos and computer-rendered images that have appeared in OSA’s peer-reviewed journals in the not-so-distant past (from 2006 onward). The society put out a press release that listed this and other upgrades to Optics InfoBase.
Every time you go to the Optics ImageBank home page, you see a random collection of the 204,500-plus images in the database. One time I did this and caught a glimpse of the famous — if a bit faded with age — portrait of Lena!
Who’s Lena? As I blogged in 2008, she was a comely young Playboy model who since November 1972 has been the pictorial standard against which image-processing algorithms are measured. Yes, it’s sexist, but it’s at least a more memorable image than a plain old test pattern, and she’s not really showing anything X-rated in the cropped portrait that has been making the rounds of the optical industry for nearly 40 years.
In this case, Lena’s picture came out of a 2009 Optics Express article. You can read the full article on tomographic scanning imaging here.
OSA says that the images will be free of charge through 2012 and available on a subscription basis starting in 2013. The images are all copyrighted by OSA and may be used for non-commercial purposes — read the details before downloading or exporting anything.
Just by random clicking around, I found some interesting things to look at:
- Variously colored images of a mask acquired by a color CCD camera and its RGB components;
- This neat swirly thing, which is the phase distribution of a diffraction pattern;
- Decomposition of the Mona Lisa into its Fourier components (I believe I wrote about that for OPN last year); and
- This all-too-cute depiction of “ghost imaging” of entangled photons.
So, if you are giving an educational talk on optical science and you need some pictures to liven up your PowerPoint presentation, you have a new source.
Cool Photo #3: Spirit (of Discovery) in the Sky April 17, 2012
Posted by photonicpat in science and society.Tags: cool stuff, personal, photos, space
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The community where I currently live is known primarily for two things: a cluster of buildings constructed 75 years ago as a New Deal project and a NASA research center. Having the latter in town is definitely a perk at times like today, when the space shuttle Discovery took a valedictory tour of the skies over Our Nation’s Capital Region. Although it wasn’t publicized in advance, Discovery and the Boeing 747 that ferried it up from Florida passed over NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, home base for many of the components of the Hubble Space Telescope, which this shuttle launched once and serviced twice.
I stood outside the Goddard main gate to take photos. I don’t have the best camera, and I don’t claim to be the best photographer, but at least I was there!
Here you can see the shuttle approaching NASA Goddard.
Here you can clearly see the shape of the orbiter, as well as the aerodynamic engine cover and the extra stabilizers on the aft end of the 747.
A fighter jet escorted the shuttle/747 around Greater Washington.
Seeing Discovery flying overhead, albeit with its “space wings” clipped, brought back bittersweet memories of the only shuttle launch I was privileged to witness in person from the Kennedy Space Center media site: the successful launch of Challenger in April 1985. I also recalled watching the first post-Challenger launch of Discovery with a classroom of fifth-graders and their teacher, who was one of the 100 or so semifinalists of the teacher-in-space program that had put Christa McAuliffe aboard the Challenger. I think I shook more for that televised image of a launch than when I felt the full force of the shuttle blastoff in person. But Discovery flew straight and true. And now we say: Well done, good and faithful servant.
The crowd gathered on NASA Goddard's "front lawn" to witness Discovery's final trip.
The “demise” of scientific journals March 31, 2012
Posted by photonicpat in history of science, science and society.Tags: computers, optical communications, publishing, space, technology
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I’m sitting here, working on a feature article that required me to do a lot of research in scientific journals going way-back-when. And I notice that one of the articles I’m citing, from an issue of Nature back in December 1970, is followed on the same page by another essay titled “Demise of Scientific Journals.”
Now, I don’t have the full journal-related essay, because I didn’t think to download the whole thing while I was at the library, and my in-home access to Nature doesn’t let me go back that far. Still, I am intrigued.
The “Demise” article is not credited to an author by name, just to “our Washington Correspondent.” He (I’m assuming the correspondent was a “he” — this was in 1970, after all) quotes a then-recent study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The NAS committee predicted that “journals will eventually be rendered obsolete by the computer console, although it may take ten years before each major research centre in the United States possesses a suitable terminal, a further decade for small groups of scientists to come to own consoles and yet another ten years to provide links with other continents.”
Hmm, let’s think about that. This article was written about 18 months after humans first landed on the Moon. I’m sure that people back then were still making pretty optimistic projections about Moon bases and Mars expeditions.
Ten years after the NAS committee … that would be 1980, and mainframe terminals (think VAX) were in colleges and universities, I’m sure. However, students still typed up their term papers on typewriters and went to the library to make photocopies of journal articles.
Ten years after that … takes us to 1990, and scientists certainly had their own personal computers on their desks at work, and probably at home too. Or they might have had Sun Microsystems workstations that were networked together. There was even a way to send “electronic mail” or “e-mail” messages to colleagues at other institutions, although the protocols for getting messages from one computer network to another could be cumbersome. (Quite a few pages in the 1993 membership directory of the American Astronomical Society were devoted to translating addresses to and from ARPAnet, Bitnet, JANET, NSFnet, SSL, etc.)
Ten years after that … by 2000, communications “with other continents” was definitely old hat!
And scientific journals still exist. I think there are more of them than ever before. If you’re already a journal publisher, it’s easy to start a “virtual journal” that’s online-only and/or aggregates articles from related journals in the field. Scientists all over the world are publishing up a storm, and the “information superhighway” gets bigger every year.
So … Nature‘s prediction turned out to be way too conservative. However, while we were advancing the computing and communications technologies much faster than anticipated, we didn’t get around to building those Moon bases and exploring Mars. What happened there?
A couple of “not quite…” moments March 20, 2012
Posted by photonicpat in energy, lighting, science and society.Tags: energy, lighting
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First off, let me apologize for not posting interesting thoughts to this blog as soon as they pop into my mind (or as soon as I read them elsewhere on the Internet). Recently I just finished one feature-length article for Optics & Photonics News (OPN), and I have a second one due in less than two weeks. Plus, I’m working on a shorter article and some other projects. You can always follow my Twitter feed or “Like” my Facebook page.
Anyhow, here’s what I’ve been reading….
First off, a couple of Fridays ago (March 9, to be exact), the Washington Post had a front-page story screaming, “Affordability award goes to a $50 light bulb” (or “Government-subsidized green light bulb carries costly price tag” on the Web version). Apparently, the winner of the U.S. Energy Department’s “L Prize” award for innovation in energy-efficient lighting is a lamp that costs $50 per bulb. Since practically all of us American adults have grown up in the era of ultra-cheap incandescent bulbs, that seems almost prohibitively expensive, doesn’t it? Especially since the story was accompanied by an infographic that claimed that it would be cheaper for a household to buy 30 inefficient incandescent bulbs (which generate more heat than light) over 10 years than to buy just one of the super-efficient prize-winning lamps.
As my high school chemistry teacher used to say, “Yah, but….” As it turned out, the original infographic had gotten the math wrong. As it turns out, if you stuck with incandescents for your favorite lamp, over the next decade it would cost you $228 — $30 for 30 bulbs and $198 for 1,800 kWh of electricity. However, you could spend the next decade using the $50 bulb in your lamp and expend only 300 kWh of electricity, for a grand total of $83.
Hat tip to the Media Matters for America blog for pointing out the change in the infographic, as well as straightening out the often-distorted reporting about the coming changes in our light-generating technologies. I’m really getting sick and tired of hearing politicians tag President Obama with the alleged “light-bulb ban” when his predecessor, President George W. Bush, was the guy who actually signed the relevant legislation. If it didn’t happen during the Bush administration, then how come I wrote about it back then?
However … At least the Post‘s “Fact Checker” blogger got things right when he pointed out that Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney attributed the “ban” on incandescent bulbs to “Obama’s regulators.” The blog gave Romney three Pinocchios (out of four), meaning “(s)ignificant factual error and/or obvious contradictions,” for that one.
Remember, folks, incandescent bulbs aren’t going to be “banned” — they’re just going to be held to a much higher energy-efficiency standard, and if they can’t cut the mustard, well, so be it. That’s “not quite” a ban.
Another GLOBE at Night observing period starts soon March 12, 2012
Posted by photonicpat in astronomy, lighting, science and society.Tags: astronomy, citizen science, education, light pollution
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GLOBE at Night, a worldwide effort to measure light pollution in the night sky, starts another observing period tomorrow night (March 13).
Participating in GLOBE at Night couldn’t be simpler. Just find one of three constellations an hour or so after local sunset. (I’ll probably pick Orion, but you could also look for Leo or Crux, depending on your location.) Match what you see of that constellation to the pictures that show how the constellation is affected by varying levels of light pollution. Then report your findings to the GLOBE at Night program. (Be sure to report your location too — that is, your latitude and longitude.)
For people equipped with smartphones and tablets, GLOBE at Night provides apps in English, Spanish, German and Polish. You can also download “teacher activity packets” and “family activity packets” in nine additional languages.
This observing session runs through March 22. The final session will be open April 11-20.
Clear skies!
Some great source material for free February 29, 2012
Posted by photonicpat in history of science.Tags: history, lasers, scientists
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It’s a rare day, indeed. Happy Leap Year day, everyone!
I can’t write much today because I’m in the middle of writing another article for Optics & Photonics News (deadline: tomorrow). In the course of looking up other materials for that story, however, I stumbled upon ebook versions of oral history transcripts that I used for my May 2011 biographical article on Arthur L. Schawlow.
The Internet Archive provides free copies of the oral histories from both Schawlow and his brother-in-law, Charles H. Townes. I had found them on the Web initially, but now they can be downloaded in any number of electronic-reader formats: PDF, EPUB, Kindle and others. Go to http://www.archive.org and click on “Texts,” then search for the word “Schawlow.”
I never would have been able to write that article if Schawlow hadn’t done those oral history interviews while he was still alive. Reading the transcript was the next best thing to interviewing him personally. Kudos to the California Digital Library for getting this material in a more portable format.
Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa February 13, 2012
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Ernst Stuhlinger (1913-2008)
Ernst Stuhlinger wrote this letter on May 6, 1970, to Sister Mary Jucunda, a nun who worked among the starving children of Kabwe, Zambia, in Africa, who questioned the value of space exploration. At the time Dr. Stuhlinger was Associate Director for Science at the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama. Touched by Sister Mary’s concern and sincerity, his beliefs about the value of space exploration were expressed in his reply to Sister Mary.
Old stories, new stories February 10, 2012
Posted by photonicpat in history of science, science and society.Tags: history, imaging, photography, virtual reality
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I’ve had a bit of a burst of activity — some freelance work, some car issues, some pet-health issues, and my annual end-of-the-year holiday travel — all of which has conspired to keep me off this blog. But never fear, folks, I am still writing!
In fact, my very next feature article, on which I’m working right now, will be about photography in the American Civil War. We’re well into the sesquicentennial of this event (April 1861 to April 1865), and more people will be reading about the conflict, visiting battle sites, and watching Civil War-themed films and TV shows for the next few years. So they’ll be seeing these photographs.
But what went into making these photographs? After all, they were taken a couple of decades before Kodak came out with its famous slogan: “You press the button — we do the rest.” American Civil War photographers had to do it all … out in the field … in the mud, rain, baking sun, and stench from corpses.
Now, I learned the basics of 20th-century black-and-white darkroom work when I was a teenager, so I am confident in my ability to describe these antique photo processes. What will be really interesting (to me as a writer) is figuring out how much to write about the American Civil War itself. The magazine for which I’m writing has about 40 percent international circulation — meaning a pretty large fraction of my readership didn’t grow up learning about the American Civil War in school and may have only the foggiest notion of when it was and what it was all about. Any suggestions on how to deal with that are most welcome. Right now I’m thinking of adding four or five general books on Civil War history to the “References and Resources” section, and if they don’t fit in the print version, they can always appear online. Again, suggestions of good books are welcome.
In other news … I recently stumbled across some stunning new photorealistic rendering of human skin. The scientist who did this rendering has a website here. As I learned when writing my January 2009 OPN article on photorealistic rendering, making virtual skin look real is challenging because the rendering artist must take into consideration the fact that skin reflects different amounts of light from its different layers. If our skin reflected light only from its surface, like a mirror, we’d all look as shiny as marble statues … and obviously we don’t!
What Do You Know About Tintypes? February 3, 2012
Posted by photonicpat in history of science, science and society.Tags: history, photography
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Recently a number of patrons have contacted us asking how to identify and care for tintypes they found in their famiy photograph collections. Read more to find out if you might have a tintype of your own.
Example of a tintype presented in a case.
When were they introduced? They were patented by Hamilton L. Smith of Gambier, Ohio in 1856 and quickly became a popular photographic format.
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) update November 29, 2011
Posted by photonicpat in astronomy.Tags: astronomy, space, telescopes
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First, a reminder: You have only a day or two left to read my OPN feature article (and cover story for the November 2011 issue), “Optical Innovations in the James Webb Space Telescope.” Soon, it will vanish into the OSA-members-only archives of the magazine.
Second, an important update: Since the article was published, the JWST has gotten the full funding that it needs. Huzzah! I predict that, once it’s in orbit and collecting data, the discoveries made from JWST data will be so dazzling and mind-blowing that people will forget that its funding was ever in doubt. (After all, when was the last time you heard “Hubble” rhymed with “trouble”?)
