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Fresnel lenses may help to find life in other solar systems
- colanderman 14y agoThe title is wrong. These are not Fresnel lenses, they are zone plates, which were also invented by Fresnel. As a side note, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_plate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_plate makes for very interesting reading for those (such as myself) who are unfamiliar with the physics of the wave nature of light.
- iclelland 14y agoThanks for that link -- I was pretty sure that Fresnel lenses were refractive, and I ended up reading most of the article trying to reconcile the plastic lenses that I've seen with the copper diffraction grating that it seemed to be describing.
- DavidSJ 14y agoThanks, sorry about the incorrect title.
- planetguy 14y agoThis right here is astoundingly good science journalism. Accurate (to the best of my knowledge) and clear, that's all I ask, and this brief article in The Economist gets it right. Am I missing something, or is the writer's name not mentioned?
- glhaynes 14y agoArticles in The Economist don't get bylines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_economist#Tone_and_voice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_economist#Tone_and_voice
- planetguy 14y agoThat's a shame, because this writer is far better than most science journalists. If you're out there, anonymous writer, nice work!
- anigbrowl 14y agoIt's always this good.
- kristianp 14y agoNo, not accurate. The article is about zone plates, not fresnel lenses.
- colanderman 14y agoThe article doesn't actually mention "fresnel lens" anywhere. It does mention "zone plate" five times though.