Results and Importance of First Published Work
His first paper was "The Electrodynamics of Substances with Simultaneously Negative Values of ε and μ". Up to this point, refractive index was traditionally regarded as having only positive values. In this paper he was able to show that refractive index may also be negative. He hypothesized that negative refraction can occur if both the (electric) permittivity and the magnetic permeability of a material are negative. This prediction was confirmed 33 years later when David Smith et al., created a composite material with negative refractive index, and Sir John Pendry showed that the planar lens proposed by Veselago can indeed provide greatly improved resolution.
After Smith's and Pendry's accomplishments with metamaterials, Veselago realized that the most important contribution of his original paper is not that a composite material can be designed to produce a negative refraction, but that a composite material can be designed to produce any value for permittivity and permeability. At least a part of his research goals was then to critically reconsider all formulas of classical electrodynamics that involve permittivity, permeability or refractive index. The fact that prior research is based on positive values for these parameters leads to erroneous solutions when negative values are considered or researched. He stated that many of these formulas need to be corrected.
Veselago perceived that the next big breakthrough with metamaterials will be the fabrication of transparent low-absorption metamaterials with negative refraction in the visible spectrum range.
Read more about this topic: Victor Veselago
Famous quotes containing the words results, importance, published and/or work:
“Being a parent is unlike any previous job—the results of any one action are not clearly visible for a long time, if at all.”
—Anonymous Mother. As quoted in Between Generations by Ellen Galinsky, ch. 2 (1981)
“We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Our fear that Communism might some day take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti-communism already has.”
—Anonymous U.S. Analyst In 1967. Quoted in “The Uses of Anticommunism,” vol. 21, published in The Socialist Register (1985)
“Bless you, of course you’re keeping me from work,
But the thing of it is, I need to be kept.
There’s work enough to do there’s always that;
But behind’s behind. The worst that you can do
Is set me back a little more behind.
I shan’t catch up in this world, anyway.
I’d rather you’d not go unless you must.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)