Holography is a way to store a lot of information in interference patterns. This technique has been in use since the 1940s, originally used with electron microscopy — and later expanded with the invention of lasers. A hologram is the reconstructed image created by interfering wave forms, these waveforms can be reconstructed by producing partial information (a light source) and observing the output at a given reference angle. You shine a light on the hologram, and you see a three dimensional image that changes with your viewing angle. These interference patterns can be from angled scratches in a surface (“Scratch…
We’ve become connoisseurs of odd things since lockdown began last march. We now have strong opinions on topics like toiletpaper, nose-wire masks, and hand sanitizer that doesn’t do more damage than it prevents. Even everyday tasks such as loading the dishwasher have come under scrutiny.
The dishwasher is primarily my task, as I tend to play sous chef for prepping dinner, I also tend to do much of the washing up. I have become particular about how to load the dishwasher to optimize the quality of how well those dishes get clean vs. the quantity of dishes. …
I’m still a little tired this morning, and poured my second cup of coffee. I must have left it in the kitchen, but I didn’t find it. Not in the microwave. Maybe I left it in the dining room while I was getting ready this morning. Maybe I set it down in the lab. I stomp back to the lab, I think.
There’s a quality of light through stained glass in the morning. Something about dawn, and dew, that adds a kind of clarity to it. A shining edge to the points of light you can only get at daybreak…
Replacing hard-to-recycle materials in mobile phones with sustainable ones is a lot easier than it would seem. A small change in common practice could help build a sustainable, beautiful world. One more step toward the solarpunk future.
Solarpunk, if you’re not familiar, is a genre based on a possible future where humans live in balance with the environment and continue to increase our technological capability. It focuses on recycleability, sustainability, and cradle-to-cradle thinking about the machines, materials, and systems we create. An ideal system of justice that recognizes human/environmental interaction, where we realize that we are part of the world…
A memristor is a passive component like a resistor, capacitor, or inductor. It’s not widely known, as it was first postulated in the early 1970s. The concept can be boiled down to a resistor that changes resistance based on current, and has a “memory” of that resistance. When you push current one way, the resistance will rise up. You can lower it by pushing current in the opposite direction. Once it reaches 0 (or some threshold), it will then rise again. Alternatively, a memristor can become more conductive with current, returning to its resistive state when the current is reversed…
Michael E Johnson
Inventor
