Posts Tagged John Howell

3-D displays, once only found in science fiction, are now closer to reality using a 3-D volumetric display where viewers can see images in three dimensions without the use of special glasses or filters.

Researchers have developed a “quantum enigma machine” to improve on data encryption. The device manipulates photons to create an unbreakable encrypted message with a key that’s far shorter than the message—the first time that has ever been done.

Rochester researchers working on the next generation of quantum information processing have received a $2 million boost from the National Science Foundation.

Using the same mathematical framework as the Rochester Cloak, researchers have been able to use flat screen displays to extend the range of angles that can be hidden from view. Their method lays out how cloaks of arbitrary shapes, that work from multiple viewpoints, may be practically realized in the near future using commercially available digital devices.

The best guide to the boundary between our everyday world and the “spooky” features of the quantum world has been a theorem called Bell’s Inequality, but now a new paper shows that we understand the frontiers of that quantum world less well than scientists have thought.

Scientists have recently developed several ways—some simple and some involving new technologies—to hide objects from view. The latest effort, developed by physics professor John Howell and graduate student Joseph Choi, not only overcomes some limitations of previous devices, but uses inexpensive, readily available materials in a new way. “This is the first device that we know of that can do three-dimensional, continuously multidirectional cloaking,” said Choi.

Physicists have shown that a technique called compressive sensing offers a way to measure both variables at the same time, without violating the Uncertainty Principle.

With the help of his 14 year-old son, Benjamin, John Howell built three simple but surprisingly effective optical cloaking devices with inexpensive, off-the-shelf materials.