Sunlight Trap Could Lead to New Generation of Solar Devices
Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 08:29
in Paleontology & Archaeology
In the Greek legend of Dionysius' ear, Dionysius made a cave shaped like an ellipse in order to hear the words whispered by a prisoner in one of the foci of the cave. Some science museums today feature a similar exhibit, where two people at opposite ends of a room can whisper into giant ellipses and distinctly hear each others' words. This sort of cave, called Dionysius' ear, has also inspired the design of a new sunlight trap proposed by physicists Roberto De Luca and Aniello Fedullo, both of the University of Salerno in Italy.