That is the same group referenced by Pendry in the Scientific American paper. As I interpret the article, the index of refraction was negative as was permittivity (ε). With this lens the distance between the object and image is smaller than the wavelength of the light, hardly practical with a camera.
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But Bill, I've just written that I don't expect a fully functioning camera lens made from metamaterials to be available in
my lifetime. Microlenses are a different kettle of fish though, don't you agree?
As you must have gathered, I'm a technology optimist. I don't know enough to understand why certain developments are impossible. However, it's apparent that sometimes things that seem impossible from a practical viewpoint
can become feasible as developments take place in other disciplines, especially in computer science.
In Australia we are having a political debate about nuclear energy in light of the fact we have so much uranium but are getting most of our energy from burning coal.. But the holy grail of energy production has always been the development of the fusion reactor, something which Australia seems not to be involved with.
.... the world's top industrial nations — including the United States, Russia and the European Union — signed an agreement to build the world's first full-scale nuclear fusion reactor, the $A15 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER). After the International Space Station, ITER says, it is the world's biggest science project.
Nuclear fission, nuclear fusion — what's the difference? Fusion has been mooted for decades as the next generation of nuclear power, one that uses hydrogen instead of uranium.
There is a virtually limitless supply of fuel, say supporters, as hydrogen can be extracted from seawater. Moreover, fusion produces little radioactive waste — one of the main worries about fission — and no greenhouse gases. It promises, say supporters, nothing less than a world where energy and global warming concerns are solved.
This idea has been kicking around for many decades. I'm glad someone is still working on it and taking it seriously. I guess you don't spend $15 billion without some expectation of success.
Another theoretically possible technological breakthrough of great consequence is the Quantum computer. They are still wotking on that too.
Science Daily — Physicists at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have taken a significant step toward transforming entanglement--an atomic-scale phenomenon described by Albert Einstein as "spooky action at a distance"--into a practical tool. They demonstrated a method for refining entangled atom pairs (a process called purification) so they can be more useful in quantum computers and communications systems, emerging technologies that exploit the unusual rules of quantum physics for pioneering applications such as "unbreakable" data encryption.
The NIST process for "purifying" an unusual property of quantum physics called entanglement involves illuminating two pairs of beryllium ions (charged atoms) with a series of ultraviolet laser pulses. (Credit: Bill Pietsch, Astronaut 3 Media)Ads by Google Advertise on this site
The NIST work, reported in the Oct. 19, 2006, issue of Nature,* marks the first time atoms have been both entangled and subsequently purified; previously, this process had been carried out only with entangled photons (particles of light). The NIST demonstration also is the first time that scientists have been able to purify particles nondestructively. Direct measurement would destroy the delicate entangled state of atom pairs; the new experiment gets around this problem by entangling two pairs of atoms and measuring only one pair.