Take a look a this …
Blocked holes can enhance rather than stop light going through
Quote:
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Conventional wisdom would say that blocking a hole would prevent light from going through it {a thin metal film}, but Princeton University engineers have discovered the opposite to be true. A research team has found that placing a metal cap over a small hole in a metal film does not stop the light at all, but rather enhances its transmission.
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How much more light ?
70 percent more !
Try predicting
that from 'first principles' !
I suppose once it is
known that this is how it works, it can then be 'predicted' from theory … chuckle, chuckle …
How does it happen ? (Here comes the theoretical 'prediction' …)
Quote:
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Chou said the metal disk acts as a sort of "antenna" that picks up and radiates electromagnetic waves. In this case, the metal disks pick up light from one side of the hole and radiate it to the opposite side. The waves travel along the surface of the metal and leap from the hole to the cap, or vice versa depending on which way the light is traveling.
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Talk about counterintuitive !! And this time, the unanticipated result has been exposed via experimentation.
I wonder how many 'intuitive' expectations end up being incorporated into theoretical predictions, entirely due to unconscious/unchallenged/unsupported (empirically) 'intuition'?
.. Great stuff !
Cheers