161–170 of 219 posts
This is a seriously awesome piece of work. The mathematics in the paper are pretty dense but if you're ok with vector calculus its not too bad. The implication here is that you can build lenses that have a consistent focal plane across their entire surface. A pair of glasses made this way would have crystal clear vision regardless of your 'look' direction (as an example). It also suggests that you could build lenses…
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This raises the perennial question of whether product placement is a legitimate source of funding for fundamental scientific research. After placing an ice-cube in my delicious glass of refreshing coca-cola brand carbonated beverage, I yelled Eureka! and jumped out of the bath. Is that really how it happened? Is it not inconsistent with the pursuit of truth?
It's really natural, on first mention, to refer to something using a member of the degenerate set of its most unique identifier, right? From that point on, to avoid repetition, mix in antecedents or generic names. Brands exploit this mechanic in language so that any time a, thereto unknown, good has to be addressed, that identification become advertising. It shifts from being a unique identification of an object/item…
In other words, Brands by definition must be distinct from regular language.
> After months of working on solving the problem, Rafael González recalls, “I remember one morning I was making myself a slice of bread with Nutella, when suddenly, I said out loud: Mothers! It is there!” > He then ran to his computer and started programming the idea. When he executed the solution and saw that it worked, he says he jumped all over the place. It is unclear whether he finished eating the Nutella bread.…
This raises the perennial question of whether product placement is a legitimate source of funding for fundamental scientific research. After placing an ice-cube in my delicious glass of refreshing coca-cola brand carbonated beverage, I yelled Eureka! and jumped out of the bath. Is that really how it happened? Is it not inconsistent with the pursuit of truth?
The paper is from Nov 2018, and is easy to find online. It’s a pretty amazing result; the examples they give in the paper are for some reasonable shaped primary surfaces and some really neat “exotic” stuff. The solution actually admits aberrant free solutions for any geometry that doesn’t include self-crossing rays. So, some of the ‘weird’ examples include a Bessel-function cross section, negative index of refraction…
[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.03792 "Rigorous analytical formula for freeform singlet lens design free of spherical aberration" [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.11129 "Single lens telescope"
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My understanding is that centuries ago in Latin America "madre" became an euphemism for "madame of a brothel", while actual moms are called "mamá". In Spain it carries no such connotation.
Mamá means mom, madre means mother. You use either depending on the context. (I'm only talking about the Mexican use) Madre is used more often in phrases, such as "Madre de dios!" , Or "La madre putria," or "Pinche tu madre" , or it's used as a formal to refer to one's mother. It's similar in English, such as "On my mother's side" , "Mother fucker" , "Mother of God!" , etc. In Mexico, "tu madre" can be a general insu…
This is a seriously awesome piece of work. The mathematics in the paper are pretty dense but if you're ok with vector calculus its not too bad. The implication here is that you can build lenses that have a consistent focal plane across their entire surface. A pair of glasses made this way would have crystal clear vision regardless of your 'look' direction (as an example). It also suggests that you could build lenses…
Could this also be significant for super large lenses like giant telescopes?
The fact that there is an analytical solution to the problem is a really nice achievement, but I have to wonder: solving this problem numerically has surely been within reach of computers for a long time, and should therefore have made actually manufacturing such lenses somewhat straightforward. What am i missing?
CAD modeling is very slow when you need to use numerical simulation.
I assume that if numerically solving for a correcting shape was burdensome you would model an element using a first surface and a 'dummy' second surface that your software just treats as magically correcting. ... then when you are happy with your design, you go ahead and compute the actual shape for that second surface... or similar.
I would expect a closed form solution to more useful for meta analysis of the problem-- looking at its behaviors (and especially derivatives) in various external cases may suggest interesting and novel optical system designs. Like, "oh, foo changes cubically with with an infinite focal length that means if we could make lenses with cherry flavored unobtanium we could bounce a gravitation particle beam off the main deflector dish!".
There are various people speculating on the economic significance of this solution, which, to me, is rather missing the point. It's like measuring the significance of the excavation of Tutankhamen's† tomb by the tourist revenues of museums. The point of economics is that it keeps us alive so we can do math and also think in other ways; the point of consciousness is not to make money. I don't think there is any econom…
> The point of economics is that it keeps us alive so we can do math The most hacker news comment I read all year
Can you do economics without math?
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No. But there are things besides money and math. Like photography!
I thought the point of photography was primarily so that you (people, in general, not necessarily just you individually) could look at the photos, i.e., experience them consciously, and secondarily to consciously experience the process of photography itself. But perhaps you have a different reason for considering photography worthwhile, other than the conscious experience of the photographs and of the photography pro…
Slightly related: One thing I've learnt in Physics is that there are still a huge number of practical and fundamental problems to be solved. You might expect everything easy will already be done by now but that's just not true. Hence we still manage to write so many papers! In fact many Physicists have too many papers they want to write and not enough time to write them. This was a huge surprise for me coming in to m…
We can build things that deal with unimaginable precision, create new elements, compute with quantum effects, but we don't know why flat things stick together?