By Patricia Daukantas

Time magazine is announcing to the world this week: “Teleportation is real.” The type of teleportation it’s talking about, though, isn’t likely to satisfy folks who dream of “beaming up” to other worlds.

Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (University of Maryland, University of Michigan) managed to teleport information between two ionized ytterbium atoms – separated by a full 1 m of distance – through their entanglement with photons.

The team’s report appeared in the January 23^rd issue of Science, and subscribers to that journal can find the full report here. Other scientists, unaffiliated with the Maryland-Michigan team, put the teleportation experiment in its larger context (also for Science subscribers).

Quantum-computing technology is difficult for some people to wrap their heads around, but it could have a real impact someday on data encryption and ever-tinier computers. It’s encouraging when the subject makes its way out of the technical journals and into the mainstream media.

2009-01 January

By Patricia Daukantas

It’s no secret that Polaroid stopped making its instant-film products last year. Now the New York Times is reporting that a group of analog-photography fans are planning to resurrect at least some types of the Polaroid film – even if they have to reverse-engineer everything themselves.

According to the Times, the leaders of the so-called “Impossible Project” have set up shop in Polaroid’s former factory in the Netherlands, bought the factory equipment and hired several technicians who had worked in instant film. The group’s Web site claims that recent experiments have shown that currently available chemicals and materials can be substituted for those no longer being made – resulting in an all-new recipe for the 21^st century.

It’s an uphill battle, and the instant-film team has set its sights on 2010 as the market date for the new product. In fact, the Web site even has a “countdown clock” showing the time remaining until next year (remember, there are 3.16 × 10⁷ seconds in a year). No one knows how much the new instant film will cost, or whether it will appeal to an audience beyond a handful of hardcore devotees.

One of the project leaders used to be a manager at the Lomographic Society, which, as far as I can tell, is a Web-based community for people who revel in old photographic technologies. The society gets its name from a brand of film camera that originated in the Soviet Union.

In other instant-photography news, the Norwich Bulletin in Connecticut (U.S.A.) is inviting readers to send in their Polaroid snapshots and their tales of Polaroid founder Edwin Land, who graduated from a local independent school called the Norwich Free Academy. This year will mark the centennial of Land’s birth.

2009-01 January polaroid

By Patricia Daukantas

The eyeglasses that physicist Joshua Silver is wearing in this photograph look curiously like those worn by the fictional boy wizard Harry Potter. To the people who receive a pair of these glasses, they just might seem to be “magical.”

Silver, a physicist at Oxford University in England, has designed a pair of self-adjusting eyeglasses designed to help poor people in developing countries, especially rural areas. The Washington Post wrote an inspiring article about his work on January 10.

Silver’s glasses don’t require the services of an ophthalmologist, optometrist or optician. Instead, the lenses in each pair are made of a soft plastic sac that holds silicone oil. Eyeglass wearers can adjust the little pumps on the earpieces to add or subtract the clear oil until they see better.

So far, Silver has distributed about 30,000 pairs to the Third World, but he hopes to distribute 1 billion spectacles by 2020.

2009-01 January

By Patricia Daukantas

Welcome to 2009! But this is not just any old year – it’s the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). And, even though it’s focused on the science of the heavens, the year commemorates an entirely optical event: the 400^th anniversary of Galileo Galilei’s first use of the telescope to study astronomical objects.

Opening ceremonies for IYA 2009 are set for the night of January 15-16 in Paris, France, with the United States kickoff happening on January 6 as part of the American Astronomical Society’s meeting in Long Beach, Calif. The U.S. kickoff will even be viewable over the Web.

One of the IYA “cornerstone projects” is the Galileoscope program to get millions of people looking up at the skies through telescopes. Astronomers are developing an easy-to-assemble, do-it-yourself telescope kit that would give people a modest but real viewing experience similar to Galileo’s own four centuries ago. (Remember, Galileo at first thought the rings of Saturn were a couple of satellites or nearby stars. Optical quality in 1609 was not what it is today.)

The IYA encompasses many more projects in 135 countries and in cyberspace on the Second Life virtual community. Visit the IYA’s home page to find out what’s happening near you.

During the year, OPN’s blog will feature updates on the final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission (now scheduled for this May), and the pages of our magazine will carry other news related to astronomical optics. Have a great 2009!

2009-01 January