Best of Last Week – Replacing wires with light, physics mystery solved and link between vitamin D and depression
Monday, December 8, 2014 - 08:30
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org)—It was an impressive week for researchers combining physics and engineering as one team of engineers took a big step toward using light instead of wires inside computers—they've created a prism-like device that can split light into its different colors and bend each at a right angle, a possible step towards carrying data optically. Meanwhile, another team looking to answer the question of whether capacitors in electrical circuits can provide large-scale energy storage has been able to show that that the right combination of resistors and capacitors can allow both quick charging and long-term discharging, possibly opening up a path for using them instead of batteries in some devices.