In the early 1970s, two people, working independently (Mark Land at the University of Sussex and Klaus Vogt at Freiburg University) described the detailed structure of the lobster eye. It is made up of numerous tiny tubes each with walls that act like mirrors to reflect the light and bounce it down to the back of the eye. The whole creates many very narrow beams of light which provides the lobster with vision even though there is no lens in the system.
Vogt published his work in 1975 in a journal called Zeitschrift fur Naturforschung, in German with an English summary. Land published his work in the English journal, Nature, in 1976.
In 1978, Land published a more popular account of his work in the general science journal, Scientific American. This article was read by a telescope designer at the University of Arizona, Roger Angel. He saw this as a possible design for a telescope to focus x-rays from outer space and in 1978 published a proposal for such a design in the Astrophysical Journal.
The technology to produce such a telescope was not then available. It has since been developed by astronomers at the University of Leicester. They are now part of an international team building this telescope which is expected to be functional in 2001.
Another group at the University of Leicester has seized on this idea for a completely different application. Tiny parallel beams of x-rays might be used to etch ultra-small transistors on computer chips. The idea is being explored in association with an American company, Nova Scientific. If it fulfils its promise, it could result in a new multi billion dollar industry and revolutionise computing power.
An article in the popular science weekly, New Scientist in July 1996 quotes Land as saying "I only wish it had been possible to patent the idea."
Some things to ponder
- this story involves the transmission of information via academic journals,
popular journals
and personal contacts: all have their place;
- there is an exchange of ideas between different institutions and different countries which
would be difficult to achieve by personal contacts only;
- the formal publication process does not prevent duplication of
work;
- although science tends to emphasise very recent work, ideas may be important long after
their original publication;
- pure scientific research may produce practical applications: there is an interplay between
- and between the literature of - science, technology and
industry;
- patents exist to protect the rights of inventors but what is an
invention?