By Lido Vizzutti, 11-19-08
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Caption: A revolver being fired. - Photo by Garry Settles/Penn State |
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As photographers, we are always trying to understand the visual world - to make images of what can be seen. So when photography and science collide, the result is quite intriguing.
Gary Settles, a professor of engineering at Pennsylvania State University, uses "shclieren" photography to capture colorful images of scenarios otherwise invisible to the human eye. According to an article in the NY Times (
here), Schlieren is German for "streaks" and can refer to "regions of different densities in a gas or a liquid, which can be photographed as shadows using a special technique."
The process makes it possible to capture the unseen airflow of a burning candle, a hairdryer, a gas leak or the reverberating shock waves of a pistol being fired. And it all started in an attempt to map a cough.
Read the story in the Times (
here) and check out a slide show (
here).
[End of article]
