More on Lenses with a Negative Index of Refraction 300
Roland Piquepaille writes "A University of Toronto researcher has developed a flat lens that doesn't respect the "normal" laws of nature and could significantly enhance the resolution of imaged objects. "The creation of an unusual flat lens may finally resolve a long-running controversy about the existence of materials that have metaphysical qualities -- so-called "metamaterials" -- that transcend the laws of nature. The lens could lead to amplified antennas, smaller cell phones and increased data storage on CD-ROMs. As says George Eleftheriades, the Toronto professor, "This is new physics." Check this column for more details and other references to metamaterials."
smaller cellphones (Score:4, Funny)
Re:smaller cellphones (Score:2)
[Will Ferrell, playing the ultra-hip proprietor of Jeffery's clothing shop on SNL, pulls out an enormous brick-sized cell phone]
Employee: What is that?!
Boss: Don't you know? Big is the new small! Cammy Diaz has a phone twice this big.
Re:smaller cellphones (Score:2)
Re:smaller cellphones (Score:2)
Anyway, I can see where this could be
Re:smaller cellphones (Score:2)
Re:smaller cellphones (Score:2)
Re:smaller cellphones (Score:2)
Having said that, if they make it any smaller, I'm going to need a toothpick to input.
Re:smaller cellphones (Score:2)
Obligitory Simpsons Quote: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligitory Simpsons Quote: (Score:2)
Original article (Score:4, Informative)
You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:5, Insightful)
Nick Powers
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying something is a 'law of nature' is to say that it is a regualrity that has been repeatedly well observed, with no relaible counter instances. And that is all. That's what the words mean. The philosopher Hume demolished [anu.edu.au] the idea of having certain knowledge about natural laws, two centuries ago. The original poster was quite correct.
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
Yup. We have to remember that science is the search for useful knowledge. Useful shortcuts for making estimates for things that can happen.
For example, you can use the law of gravitation to estimate where a planet will be, based on its mass, speed, and the mass of the sun. However, this calculation can never be completely accurate. Because you'd also need to take into account the other planets. And asteroids. And the galaxy. And you'd need the exact speed of the planet in relation to the sun. An
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, two points. One is that, due to the heisenberg uncertainty principal, you can not gather all of that information exactly
The second is that all of these "rules" are just approximations. For example, assuming you had all that information, and used a classical newtonian model, your answer would be slight
Re:Pull over, bub (Score:5, Informative)
The emphasis on the "flatness" of the lenses, at least on /., is misguided too. These are special materials, and the lenses are flat because they have to be owing to the properties of the materials, not the other way around.
Heck, there are all different shapes of lens. Nikon's been out front with consumer "aspherical" lenses for a few years now, selling them in camera lenses and relatively low-end consumer binoculars. They let you simplify things like the number of elements in a camera lens, or help with distortions on the edge of the field in binoculars. Those are all curved, still, just not spherical on the edges -- but a new shape of lens isn't really much news. It's the whacky materials that make this story.
I guess it's science reporting, so let's take what we can get.
/shrug
Re:Pull over, bub (Score:2)
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
Of course, then we will have the same problems that we have with the "Theory of Evolution". People will say it is not true because it is still just a theory. Breaking laws seems worse than disproving theory.
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
They should be written as general as necessary to fit _every_ occurance. i.e., instead of "creatures that don't eat die", it should be "animals that don't eat die" or "life forms that cease taking in energy enter an inanimate state, usually breaking any multicelluar bonds they may have."
Of course, then we will have the same problems that we have with the "Theory of Evolution". People will say it is not
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
But even then, it'd still be a theory. Reason being that every description man has of nature is just that: a model, which can be tightened to fit reality closer and closer, but always falls short when approaching the limit to infinity.
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
We have sufficient evidence NOW to make evolution a law--as long as we don't put crap like "we all evolved from apes" in there.
I'll even draft it for you: "In any environment, the creatures most fit for that environment will be the most successful. For any change in an environment, the creatures whose characteristics make them more fit to survive in that environment will p
Use your Illusion (Score:2)
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:3, Interesting)
Which means that if refractive index is negative then speed of light is exceeded in the material , ummm.. no the square root of a number is negative
A bit of googling brought this [aps.org] out , which says that the rule of thumb I used is incorrect in "metamaterials".Ahh.. releif
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
The real, true laws of nature cannot be surpassed or broken. They are how the world really works.
Unfortunately though, we don't know the complete laws, so what we call "laws of nature" are kinda equivalent to us not knowing anything about chess, or being told anything about chess, but deducing from observations what the rules are from observation. Every once and a while, we'll notice that we were wrong when someone castles their ki
Re:You cannot transcend the laws of nature (Score:2)
more on lenses (pun intended) (Score:2)
Fiction...merging...with RL... (Score:2)
Would those be Lenses of Clarity +2?
Re:Fiction...merging...with RL... (Score:2)
Anyone have access to Applied Physics Letters??? (Score:2, Interesting)
The BS Detector (Score:5, Insightful)
"Light passing through a flat glass lens will diverge." Not on my planet, bucko.
"'allows focusing almost two orders of magnitude higher than is possible with conventional lenses'..." Exactly what numerical quantity corresponds with "focusing?"
"the amount of information that could be stored on optical media would be vastly increased..." I thought that was limited by the wavelength of light used to record and read the information.
"By reversing the mathematical signs of the three main properties of all optical materials -- permittivity, permeability and refractive index -- Veselago showed that light going one way in normal materials would reverse direction in metamaterials." 1) Sure, if I start flipping signs in long-accepted equations that describe phenomena in the natural world, I can come up with all kinds of breakthroughs - antigravity, to say the least! 2) But if I set up a conventional refractive/reflective (I specifically omit "diffractive") optical system of any sort, can't I also run the light the other way identically?
Now, I think I recall an article in Scientific American some time back about structures made up of nanoantennae whose macroscopic optical properties were counterintuitive, but I don't think what I'm reading here speaks to that.
Re:The BS Detector (Score:2, Informative)
"Light passing through a flat glass lens will diverge." - Light passing through a flat glass most certainly will diverge, just like light passing through air diverges. Refraction (such as in a curved glass surface), and diffraction (such as in a hologram) can be used to refocus or make light converge.
"allows focusing almost two orders of magnitude higher than is possible with conventional lenses'..." - This one does have a bit of
SIGN FLIPPING EXAMINATION (Score:2)
sin(theta1)/sin(theta2)
= sqrt(e1/e2) "imaginary"
= n1/n2 "negative"
= z1/z2 "positive"
So where is Snell's law "reversed" here? You get three equalities of different nature (positive,negative,complex). This calculation is for oblique incidence, and theta1 is taken to be the refraction angle from normal, theta2 is
Re:The BS Detector (Score:2)
it was my understanding that a flat lens can be just as functional as a curved lens as long as the index of refraction is correctly distributed. what matters is path length difference, not simply length difference, and path length depends on index of refraction.
of course they could have meant "normal" as in simply cut from a chunk of material that was the same throughout,
Re:Anyone have access to Applied Physics Letters?? (Score:2)
"We have constructed and tested a 'left-handed' metamaterial lens based on a unique technique that has been pioneered at the University of Toronto," Eleftheriades said. "Our article is the first to report on experiments that demonstrate focusing using 'left-handed' metamaterials." (Emphasis added)
Philosophy majors, take note! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Philosophy majors, take note! (Score:2)
metaphysics my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:metaphysics my ass (Score:4, Funny)
How about other uses outside of the visible light? (Score:2)
Re:How about other uses outside of the visible lig (Score:2, Interesting)
Hearing about that product I imagine that that is a really cool and noble software development pursuit.
Re:How about other uses outside of the visible lig (Score:2)
Methods of using multiple beams at different angles to reduce the dose to healthy tissues go back to the 1960's. Perhaps with X-ray lasers, a holographic approach could be used to get the beam intensity to "cancel out" over healthy tissue. But I'm not sure how
Oh Good Grief! (Score:5, Insightful)
Metamaterials are carefully constructed arrangements of regular materials, whose properties combine to produce behaviours that no "pure" material can duplicate, including negative indexes of refraction.
This should not be a surprising concept to anyone who is aware that, for example, atoms can combine form metatoms (so-called "molecules") that have all kinds of properties not found when dealing with pure elements -- and yet the laws of nature survive!
There is no transcending the laws of nature going on here.
Right On (Score:2)
Re:Oh Good Grief! (Score:2)
Re:Oh Good Grief! (Score:4, Funny)
the term 'metaphysics' comes from aristotle, who placed all his books on a shelf in a particular order. those that were about what we call 'metaphysics' were next to his books on physics. hence, 'metaphysics' originally meant 'next to physics.'
Metaphysics Etymology (Score:2)
Close! It was Andronicus of Rhodes (Aristole's first editor) who put Aristole's book on what-we-now-call-Metaphysics after the book on Physics in his compilation. 'meta' means 'after' in Greek.
Re:Oh Good Grief! (Score:2)
Re:Oh Good Grief! (Score:2)
The source of the ingredients to make these products may need to be manufactured in a highly controlled process, but the source isn't something "one level up" from matter. "Metamaterials" is simply a marketing name for the constructed output. How is this different than other man-made materials?
Using "meta" implies there is some sort of hierarchy to
smaller glasses? (Score:2)
Nobody in science ever thinks of the common man anymore. The common man whose nose can't carry the weight of his own binoculars, let alone find his smaller cell phone without the use of additional heavyweight contact lenses!
What is wrong with you people?!
8-P
Re:smaller glasses? (Score:2)
To paraphrase David Spade: it's called Lasik. Look into it.
Re:smaller glasses? (Score:3, Interesting)
For her Lasik is getting within reach, but still carries a significant risk of further loss of vision and is unl
Re:smaller glasses? (Score:2)
Even then, there will be people who are allergic to Retinax.
Re:smaller glasses? (Score:2)
New Scientist makes fact sound like fiction (Score:4, Informative)
Sensationalistic (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate it when science discoveries are reported in that uber-hyped style. It so obscures what the real finding actually is. It looks like they have something here, but in between the whole 'transcend the laws of nature' garbage and the 'this is so fantastic and revolutionary it will change absolutely everything' garbage, it's hard to see what they actually have.
U o T Press Release (Score:3, Informative)
-PCB
bad science, or just wierd science? (Score:4, Informative)
Initially, you see n defined as c/v, where v is the speed of light in the material. Since v is less than c (always) this number is always greater than 1 except for vacuum. This is where the 'wierd science' part comes is, and the fact that you're only getting a fraction of the picture. In reality, n has both real and imaginary parts - the imaginary part decribes the 'folding' or how much the wave magnitude decays in the medium over distance and time. For example, if you took something that measured the intensity of light outside in the sunlight and compared it to the intensity of light behind a window in a house, the intensity *inside* would be less because the glass absorbs a certain amount of energy of the light as it passes through. As you can see, this 'n' thing is a little more complicated than what you learned initially in high school and college - end result, well, they sorta lied to you. In fact, the above is just scraping the barrel because you're still trying to give physical credence to a mathematical model.
The 'bad science' comes from putting too much faith in what the math really means. Guys, math is just a tool to *model* reality. If you put too much credence in it you start to think that stuff like virtual particles and feynman diagrams are real. They aren't. They're a tool used by physicists to get an answer that agrees with experiment. For more info on negative index of refraction stuff look at what these guys [ucsd.edu] did, and also look here [aip.org] for a little more info.
Not that it isn't cool to hope that things go faster than light and that we're just getting part of the picture...
Re:bad science, or just wierd science? (Score:2)
If you regard these as equivalent, I've gotta ask, where did you go to college? Or maybe the better question would be, where did you go to high school?
Metaphysics (Score:2)
Clarke proves again that he was right when said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
Re:Metaphysics (Score:2)
Metaphysical Lenses... (Score:2)
More info (Score:5, Informative)
First off, the article mentions three properties: permittivity, permeability and refractive index. To keep the discussion simple, lets only consider refractive index, which is negative here.
So what does that mean? It in some sense it means that light is traveling backward in such a material. Not in the reflected sense of backward, but in the time reversal sense. For example, lets say you have light from a light bulb incident on such a material. In air, the light is divergerging (spreading out) from the light bulb. When the light enters this material, it no longer is diverging, but it is instead now converging.
It's certainly not hard to think of a different way of making light converge: use a lens. Indeed, at first glance a material with a negative index of refraction would seem to act very much like a lens. However there are some important differences.
In particular, lets say you wanted to make a very small spot of light (useful for reading CD's, or making IC's). A lens can at best focus light down to a spot roughly equal to the size of the wavelength of light. (This is why blue lasers are wanted for advanced CD/DVD's: shorter wavelength gives a smaller spot which gives greater density). A material with a negative index can get around this limitation.
How? There is one conventional way of making a spot of light smaller than the wavelength. That's by simply using a pinhole (or a capillary, which is esentially a pinhole with a funnel to push more light through pinhole). The problem with a pinhole, is the small spot of light only exists in the plane of the pinole. The light diverges very quickly so it's hard to do anything useful with it. (There is some interest in doing near field microscopy this way). However, if you had some of this magic material, you could recreate the small spot in a different plane. (You can't do this with a lense because it is impossible to capture the entire wavefront exiting the pinhole. This material has no such limitation - you can put this material right up against the pinhole).
This explains why this material might be interesting for CD technology. I have no idea about the other applications they mention.
Re:More info (Score:2)
Damn.
Thanks for the explaination, by the way. I had some idea of the physical behaviors being described, but I had not reached the point of being able to surmise applications for it. very interesting indeed.
What the hell!? (Score:3, Interesting)
And secondly, nothing can violate the laws of physics anyway. If something can't be explained by physics, then it means our theories are wrong, not the thing is 'supernatural' or whatever. Geez.
And to think, my great post about using enzymes to create electricity rather then expensive fuel cells got deleted.
Re:What the hell!? (Score:2)
Um. Good. I would have been a dupe [slashdot.org], wouldn't it?
Give us a break (Score:2)
Hey dudes: depending on your time zone, April first is still at least four days away. Please give us a break save your metaphysical metamaterials till the day officially set asside for them.
-- MarkusQ
Nothing transcends the laws of nature (Score:2)
Lenses (Score:2)
The lens could lead to amplified antennas, smaller cell phones and increased data storage on CD-ROMs.
The meaning of the index of refraction (Score:2)
Re:You got it wrong. (Score:2)
X-ray telescopes and gamma-ray telescopes don't work via optical systems. They work by detecting the individual X and Gamma rays and then aquiring enough statistics to show the sources.
Could you provide a link to a reputable source selling a material with an index of refraction between 1 and zero for any wavelength?
headlights for French tanks (Score:2)
(troll)
Mother Nature is not a mathematician... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously though, just because Joe Physics "proved" something with a number of complex mathematical conjectures and theories 20 year
Straight from the horse mouth... (Score:2)
I have to say I was really skeptical when I read about this...
More useful link (Score:2)
Here's a (only slightly dumbed down) better explanation: http://physics.ucsd.edu/~drs/left_home.htm [ucsd.edu]
Re:More useful link (Score:2)
Please mod parent up (I can't since I've already posted to the thread.)
This link is the one that should have been included in the article, instead of all those stupid repetitions of a particularly stupid press release written by someone who clearly couldn't be bothered to read anything about the subject, or have someone else check their work. [pardon the rant. It pisses me off when people who are getting paid to write informative press releases write disinformative crap instead-- especially when its obviou
This reminds me... (Score:2)
anyone else concerned.... (Score:2)
Granted, they may have found a left-hand rule for electromagnetic radiation, but doesn't a material need to let light pass through it in order for its refractive index to mean anything? And last time i saw see-through copper, i was shrooming. ;-)
To me, what seems most interesting about this is that it has the properties of negative electric permittivity and permeability.
If i'm missing something, please explain, but how would a material made of "ordinary" copper rings and
Physics News Update (Score:2)
The 'transcendence' is an artifact of the NewsFactor writer who clearly misunderstood what was being said.
Canadian / Freedom Lense (Score:2)
More info on metamaterials? (Score:2)
Are metamaterials homogenous?
i've noticed (Score:3, Insightful)
And I've Noticed. . . (Score:2)
And I've noticed that posters with login ID numbers which are over 500,000 are prone to sounding like commercially fabricated idiots who still believe what their high school text books told them.
T
I think... (Score:2)
Stupid physics/chemistry/microscopy question (Score:2)
You are under arrest for violating law of nature (Score:2)
From the horse's mouth... (Score:2)
Metamaterials? (Score:2)
actually being mentioned in the APL article.
In fact the APL article is merely a simulation
on a computer for some idealized transmission
line. Does anyone have a reference to actual
experimental evidence, assuming it exists?
More detail about this research. (Score:2)
http://www.waves.utoronto.ca/prof/gelefth/main.ht m l [utoronto.ca]
Here's the prof's publications list; the paper that these press articles are about is right at the top.
http://www.waves.utoronto.ca/prof/gelefth/jpub/ind ex.html [utoronto.ca]
The device he wrote the paper about works in the millimetre-wave regime, if I understand correctly (a bit above microwaves). It's relatively easy to build negative-index materials here, because you can do it by building oddly-shaped configurations of wires that inte
Telescopes? (Score:2)
I believe that some negative refractive index lens had been made that worked for microwaves. I wonder if that would allow for much higher resolution microwave astronomy.
Sheesh! (Score:2)
Ok, I don't actually love it. Quite the opposite, really.
Nope. Sorry. Try again. (Score:2)
I'll believe it once they've got something real and working, a physical object that performs to those specifications. Until then, it's just another vapourware idea.
More Late-Breaking news (Score:2)
Microwaves, not visible light (Score:2)
All the talk about light and refraction refers to the microwave bands of the EM spectrum, which are down a bit from the visible light band. The same basic principles o
you can NOT (Score:2)
Here are the papers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Enough is enough (Score:2, Interesting)
Did you lose it in some metaphysical device?
The term 'metaphysical' is only used in the title and first line of the article. The scientists all use the term 'metamaterials' instead. A better definition of what 'metamaterials' are:
ANONYMOUS COWARD IN SHITE JOKE SHOCKER! (Score:2)
Today on the popular geek news site slashdot the community was rocked by a post by the well known spammer 'Anonymous Coward'. This person or persons (identity unknown) has a history of posting what is commonly referred to as 'shite' yet a new low was hit today! 'In Soviet Russia...' jokes are a common (one might say overused) form of 'humour' (I use the term loosely) on slashdot and can frequently be classed as 'piss poor' but today's effort took thi
Re:the "normal laws of science reporting" (Score:2)
A quick googling on "eleftheriades" demonstrates the professor does exist, is at the U of Toronto, and has published on this subject. Including an article in the Journal of applied physics that used the words "negative refractive index" and "metamaterial" in its title.
If this is a ruse, someone has gone to an improbably great effort on its details. My personal conclusion is that this is probably not a Professor Bourbaki situation.
However a lot about this becomes perfectly clear when you look at the auth