

Fresnel lenses may help to find life in other solar systems - DavidSJ
http://www.economist.com/node/21556552

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colanderman
The title is wrong. These are not Fresnel lenses, they are zone plates, which
were also invented by Fresnel.

As a side note, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_plate> makes for very
interesting reading for those (such as myself) who are unfamiliar with the
physics of the wave nature of light.

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iclelland
Thanks for that link -- I was pretty sure that Fresnel lenses were refractive,
and I ended up reading most of the article trying to reconcile the plastic
lenses that I've seen with the copper diffraction grating that it seemed to be
describing.

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planetguy
This right here is astoundingly good science journalism. Accurate (to the best
of my knowledge) and clear, that's all I ask, and this brief article in The
Economist gets it right.

Am I missing something, or is the writer's name not mentioned?

~~~
glhaynes
Articles in The Economist don't get bylines:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_economist#Tone_and_voice>

~~~
planetguy
That's a shame, because this writer is far better than most science
journalists.

If you're out there, anonymous writer, nice work!

