Phased Array Optics
When I applied to NC State last year, I pretty much only knew that I wanted to major in engineering. It was a promising field, and NCSU is such a good school and blah blah blah, but that was all I really knew. Early on, though, I decided to go for a Materials Science and Engineering major. (Materials Sci is basically just solid state chemistry; they look at the chemical and physical properties of matter at a small scale and stuff: Nanotechnology) Anyway, while investigating that major I came across a very interesting field within MSE, phased array optics. Phased array optics is the technology that tries to recreate a wave front of light in a specific cross-section of space. In other words, say you've got a window, but instead of glass, you've got a layer of material that creates rays of light that would mimic what would actually be going through the window if it was really glass. Instead of every point on the material being of a certain color and intensity (like in a TV screen), every point on the material emits a different light ray for each direction. If you've had any experience with Magic Eye or similar things; you should automatically tell that such a material would be able to make 3D images (true 3D images--not like those computer OSes that claim to be 3D). Also, PAO screens would theoretically be in full color by default, unlike holograms which really don't allow for full color. Such screens however, would require much more processing power than is presently possible (not only does every pixel have to addressed, but also every direction from every pixel), so PAO remains a nascent field.
An ability to create a wave front would be applicable in a myriad of ways. Besides the obvious enhancement to simple entertainment (although creating cameras that capture wave fronts is another task in itself), desktop computing would benefit from the added dimension; you might actually be able to move your head to be able to see around the window your working in now. Also, the technology would be applicable to education; med students, for instance, would be able to see organs and the human body as a whole in 3D, and unlike methods available now, they would potentially be able to look at it from different perspectives as they walk around the screen. One big different between convential screens and PAO is that, with sufficient resolution, getting your face really close to the screen does not make it hard to focus (like if you put your finger an inch from your eye, you can't focus on it); with sufficient resolution, the screen would effectively be invisible. Which brings us to another application, cloaking; a building surrounded by PAO screens that display plain grass, etc. would be invisible, and if the light displayed by those screens was extended to radio waves, it would also be invisible to radar. Also, PAO screens could project images in front of themselves, if a table was covered with a screen, it could display a 3D meal in perfection (at least viewed from above). The list could go on and on, phased array optics, once computing power becomes sufficient, is going to make plasma screens, LCD screen, basically every single kind of screen used today (and likely all of those produced within the next decade(s) ) completely obsolete. This is where visual technology is going
Posted at 08:25AM Nov 26, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
Boot Camp and Parallels
Boot Camp is a set of drivers and stuff that lets you run Windows XP or Vista on a Mac. What you do is partition your main hard drive, that is, split the hard drive in two so that it can function like two distinct hard drives; and install your copy of Windows onto the new partition after you have created it in Mac OS X. Boot Camp ultimately allows you to run both Windows and Mac at different times on the same machine.
(I know I sound like a commercial, but bear with me.) =)
And Parallels is a program that lets you start up Windows within a window while Mac OS X is still running, allowing you to run both operating systems at the same time. However, every time that Parallels runs Windows off of the Boot Camp partition that it's on, it alters some very critical system files, files that, if not returned to their correct state when you close the program Parallels, do not allow you to run Windows all by itself.
Well, that happened me.
What a pain!!!!!!! Fortunately, I had a backup of the Windows Boot Camp partition. So, I dutifully reformatted the Boot Camp partition and then put all of the files back onto it. But doing so caused the partition to be marked as unbootable; ergo, it still could not start up all by itself; problems, problems. Finally, after reformatting and repartitioning too many times and starting up Windows Recovery Console and reinstalling Windows and, and... well, you get the picture, I'm in the last steps (hopefully) to get Windows back and running; I'll post back to tell you whether it ended up working or not. I definitely hope programs and OSes and everything else computer related begin to be more universally cross-compatible. I've had enough of BSOD's (Blue Screen Of Death) and SBOD's (Spinning Beachball Of Death) to last me a long while. One prediction I can make, though, is that with the advent of the Internet, computing is becoming less and less hardware based; so maybe my wishes will become reality in not that many years.
Posted at 07:34PM Nov 15, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
Paperclips
I was reading Gooday's article linked from the Essay 2 assignment page (http://courses.ncsu.edu/sts302h/lec/002/gooday.pdf), and in the course of his argument, he mentioned the development of paperclips. Now paperclips are one of those things that you just don't ever really think about; you use them, you lose them, you move on. But, my curiosity was piqued, so I google the list of kinds of paperclips that Gooday gives: Gem, Gothic, Niagara, and Rinklip to see if I could find out some more about them, and I pulled up this page: http://www.officemuseum.com/paper_clips.htm. Wow, there used to be at least 43 kinds of paper clips! I've only ever used about 2 or 3 kinds, and it just tickled me that something so banal as a paperclip has so much history.
Learning about paperclips reminded me that engineering has really gone into everything we use, and much that we take for granted hasn't always been around. When we imagine going back in time, we usually think of being deprived of telephone, weather forecasts, computers, washing machines, etc. What we often fail to remember is that there use to not be indoor plumbing, readable lighting after dark, no advanced math or physics (some of you might not care!), no plastic (think of everything plastic you'd have to do without), no discardable eating ware, no liquid soap, no indoor plants (many fewer species, at least), no way to record sound, no well-cut clothing, no good mirrors, no artificial cooling (refrigeration or AC), ... , the list goes on. Modern society has so many new things that earlier civilizations couldn't have even imagined. Just imagine (or try) all things that are yet to come!
Posted at 10:35AM Nov 03, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]