Let me open the Stargate of Diffraction for you, once again!
This is as close as I ever got to a plain scientific visualization: No 3D effects, just the intensity of diffracted radiation as a function of position in space.
If you use a sun catcher – a film with a diffraction grating – the peaks in such images are where you would see bright blurry spots of rainbow colors.
The simplicity of the underlying “design” has always motivated me to use these patterns in weird ways:
The main peaks in these structure appear to be stretched out to infinity, and this is actually true! The positions of maxima and minima are calculated for each angle between outgoing rays of light and the normal to the flat screen. If you want to capture a peak appearing at close to 90 degrees the screen has to be extended to thousands of meters.
If the screen to capture the light were cylindrical, it would be easy to see all the peaks.
If only I could print my images on something cylindrical: Using the angle as the horizontal co-ordinate and rolling up the design!
But isn’t there a very popular print-on-demand product that is cylindrical?
COFFEE MUGS!
Here is the design template adapted for a cylindrical surface – and how it should look like on mugs:
See the images of the mug up close in my store.
The peaks are duplicated, assuming that a beam of white light would illuminate a diffraction grating in the center of the mug from opposite directions. So, I can wrap the mug completely in the design, except for the unprintable area with the handle.
A few days ago my test mug has arrived: This is how it finally looks – it is my new favorite mug now!
This is the n=3 mug, showing the peaks for a grid with three slits. The shape of the curves is also influenced by the width and the distance of the slits.
I have created four digital visualizations, for different number of slits, different width and distance – aiming at distinct patterns.
Here is the full coffee set – now available in my store!
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