International Cat Day
History
Happy International Cat Day!
On 8 August, each year, we celebrate all Opticats - whether they're alive, dead or cute.
Join us on the catwalk as we explore all of the pawsitively amazing ways cats pop up in optics - as the foundation for quantum mechanics, a visual effect, inspiration for new technology or as a fluffy friend sprawled across your keyboard.
Image of the Week
Cat's eye effect
This photo demonstrates the cat's eye effect of a sphere with fibrous inclusions upon double illumination, by a coherent red laser and by an incoherent green lamp.
Monika Ritsch-Marte, Medical University of Innsbruck
Research News
A second box for Schrödinger’s cat
Schrödinger’s cat also likes to sit in boxes - in this case, two of them.
Not only can the famous feline be both "alive" and "dead" simultaneously, but it can also be alive and dead in two places at once.
With a setup of multiple optical cavities tied together with a superconducting artificial atom, researchers demonstrated “a Schrödinger’s cat that lives in two cavities."
Research News
Artificial Vision, Inspired by Cats
A cat's pupils can narrow in the daytime to distinguish prey from its surroundings and expand at night to increase its sensitivity to light.
Now, an artificial vision system takes inspiration from cats to improve object detection and recognition in various lighting conditions
Image of the Week
Cat’s Vision
How does a cat's vision change with its pupil dilation?
Here, you can see a cat’s vision according to Fourier optics, with this digital illustration of the imaging process in an aberration-free system using diaphragms in the form of a cat's pupil.
Victor M. Rico, CICESE, México
Optica Store
Entangle with Opticat
Cats, lasers, cats with lasers.
Don't worry, Opticat won't knock your mug off a table or sit on your computer, (but may emit a laser).
Frontiers in Optics
Entanglement and Schrödinger's Cat with David Wineland at FiO 2025
At first, only represented as a thought experiment, the 2012 Nobel Laureate in Physics, David Wineland, developed a way to study the quantum mechanical behavior of individual ions.
Join Wineland at FiO 2025 to explore how superposition and entanglement are used in quantum computing, potentially leading to an analog of Schrödinger's famous cat!
