Scientists in China have invented a powerful laser which can essentially scorch the air to create patterns. Lasers have already been used to create optical illusions, but they needed dust or clouds as a medium.
The Wuhan-based team demonstrated the laser by writing Chinese characters in the air, which can be viewed and even touched.
Sunlight sparkling on water evokes the rich phenomena of liquid-light interaction, spanning spatial and temporal scales. While the dynamics of liquids have fascinated researchers for decades, the rise of neuromorphic computing has sparked significant efforts to develop new, unconventional computational schemes based on recurrent neural networks, crucial to supporting wide range of modern technological applications, such as pattern recognition and autonomous driving. As biological neurons also rely on a liquid environment, a convergence may be attained by bringing nanoscale nonlinear fluid dynamics to neuromorphic computing.
Researchers from University of California San Diego recently proposed a novel paradigm where liquids, which usually do not strongly interact with light on a micro-or nanoscale, support significant nonlinear response to optical fields. As reported in Advanced Photonics, the researchers predict a substantial light-liquid interaction effect through a proposed nanoscale gold patch operating as an optical heater and generating thickness changes in a liquid film covering the waveguide.
The liquid film functions as an optical memory. Here’s how it works: Light in the waveguide affects the geometry of the liquid surface, while changes in the shape of the liquid surface affect the properties of the optical mode in the waveguide, thus constituting a mutual coupling between the optical mode and the liquid film. Importantly, as the liquid geometry changes, the properties of the optical mode undergo a nonlinear response; after the optical pulse stops, the magnitude of liquid film’s deformation indicates the power of the previous optical pulse.
Posted in futurism
An aerial view of the NELHA facilities in Kona, Hawaii. Makai has installed undersea pipelines that descend to 915 m (3,002 ft) water depth at a temperature of 4° C (39° F).
Seawater Air Conditioning (SWAC) takes advantage of available deep cold water from the ocean, a river, or lake, to replace conventional AC systems. Such a system can also utilize cold lake or river water as the cold source.
SWAC feasibility studies for a variety of sites indicate that electrical consumption is typically reduced by 80 to 90 percent. Simple payback can be from three to seven years, and long term costs can be half that of a conventional air conditioning system.
He still has $112 billion. Bill Gates took the first steps toward donating $20 billion of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF), giving away shares worth $6 billion this week, Business Insider reported.
Bill Gates is still the world’s fifth-richest person, according to Bloomberg and Forbes rankings, despite giving away shares worth more than $6 billion this week to his charitable foundation.
Gates donated close to $5.2 billion worth of stock in Canadian National Railway Co to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, SEC filings show.
The Microsoft co-founder also gave away $995 million worth of shares in Deere & Co. to the foundation on Thursday, filings from Friday show.
Here are 10 fascinating images that show how massive the Great Pyamid of Giza trully is. The builders used 2.3 million stones to build the Great Pyramid.
Electrolyzers are machines that have a big future.
The electrolyzer, obscure for decades, sees its sales soar. Here’s how the technology works.
Joshua Miele, who builds adaptive technologies at Amazon, is part of a generation of leaders who are reshaping the world and have roots in The Cave, a basement hideaway at UC Berkeley that nurtured blind innovators.
