OCR Text |
Show Light Rays Perform All Sorts of Optical Tricks The science of lighting is one more branch of knowledge which has developed to a point of specialization speciali-zation in which the gulf between what the expert and the layman know about it is widening every day. The array of new and unfamiliar lighting fixtures and the design of new fixtures show that lighting men, by taking advantage of the laws of optics astronomers have employed for years and also by taking advantage advan-tage of special plastics, are able to bend, reflect and blend light rays in any manner that is desired. Every manner of optical trick is being applied in the new fixtures to make light obey every command. It is spread out and put together again with the aid of prisms. It is made to run around corners with the aid of plastics. A new opal glass will blend and diffuse both light that is refracted, or bent, and light that is reflected. Rippled mirrors soon will be available that spread out smoothly the light that strikes them. An example of one of the many revolutionary fixtures is an "educated" "educat-ed" student desk lamp. Inside its shade is a mathematically curved silver reflector. The light produced shines through a transparent sheet of plastic material ma-terial that is stretched all the way across the bottom of the shade. By cutting out all horizontal vibrations, it is asserted that the light can cause no glare or shimmering even on the whitest paper. |