Sunday, March 22, 2015

The real world keeps taking away my real world physics

Once upon a time (a few years ago), a reasonable high school physics question was, "Why do the first broadcasters in a given television market get the lowest channel numbers on the dial?" In Sacramento, for example, that would be the NBC affiliate, KCRA, who got Channel 3. Channel 1 was never licensed to anyone by the FCC, and Channel 2 was given to the neighboring San Francisco market. The channel numbers correspond to broadcast frequencies: lower channel numbers broadcast on lower carrier frequencies. The corresponding longer waves are better at diffracting over hills and into valley, delivering commercial messages to more viewers.

But broadcast technology changed in 2009, so the problem is no longer relevant, as far as I know.

And now chromatic aberration? Researchers at Harvard have apparently developed a flat lens that focuses all colors at the same point.

Perfect colors, captured with one ultra-thin lens
NO NEED FOR COLOR CORRECTION—HARVARD PHYSICISTS’ FLAT OPTICS, USING NANOTECHNOLOGY, GETS IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME



Well, we'll always have The Dark Side of the Moon.


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