Polarized sight

Jerry Wayne Decker ( jwdatwork@yahoo.com )
Fri, 12 Nov 1999 14:57:49 -0800 (PST)

Hi Folks!

Not sure if anyone read this email from John Schnurer
but it is rather cool and particularly fitting with
something we hope to have posted by the end of the
month;
----------------------
There is a wonderful book, called "Bees" by von Frisch
[I think that is the spelling] that should be
required reading for bio.

A wonderful parallel with history and science:

Bees have segmented eyes and the segments are
polarized. The sun gives off randomly polarized light
and one aspect of this polarization is lineal plane
polarization ... this also goes through clouds on
overcast days and the bees can navigate.

The history. some of the North Europe and Viking
navigators used a mineral they called "Sunstone" which
polarizes light. The sunstone can be used to see the
polarization of the sun on cloudy days, just like the
bees!

If you put a polarizing plane filter over the bees'
nest you can actually drive them around!

I have used this method of encoding to do head
position for virtual reality. For robotic guidance.
For encoding and decoding communications and manifold
position sensing.

I also use it to teach the history, old and new, as
was recounted, above.

There is a huge range of technologies solved by
nature. I have used non camera velocity sensing for
vehicles and other targets, passive so it cannot be
detected or jammed by using the mamalian vision
methods.

There are over 5,000 such biological solutions to
puzzles in catalog.

Applied biology.

=====

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Please respond to jdecker@keelynet.com
as I am writing from my work email of
jwdatwork@yahoo.com.........thanks!
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