With A Bit of Math, Researchers Find a Way to See Through Opaque Materials
Light is essential to vision, at least the kind we perform with our naked eyes. This is why we can see through a glass lens but not through a brick wall (though we're working on that). But what about materials that let some light pass while scattering it in seemingly chaotic ways? Our naked eyes can't reassemble that light into coherent images, but using some clever math, a team of researchers has devised a way to focus light through opaque materials to "see" objects on the other side -- provided they have enough data about the material. The team developed a numerical transmission matrix based on the way light passes through a layer of opaque zinc oxide, a common ingredient in white paints. The matrix captured the various ways the light changed upon passing through (and by various, we mean various; the matrix included over 65,000 numbers detailing the way the...